17 November 2013

When Attorney General Holder said we were “a nation of cowards” on issues of race, I agreed wholeheartedly.  Very few people have the courage to point out that blacks in America suffer from self-inflicted pathologies, aided and abetted by liberal policies.

Any criticism of blacks, or of those policies, is immediately branded “racist.”  For example, many liberals, black and white, attribute any criticism of ObamaCare as motivated by race. It can’t be that ObamaCare is a bad law. Oh, no.  Critics of ObamaCare can’t be motivated by facts and principle, the racist SOBs.

An almost amusing form of this accusation was used by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. recently on MSNBC. Gates became famous after a confrontation with some white cops in Cambridge, MA, a confrontation President Obama used to show us that he is quick to play the race card. You can Google it up.

Anyway, Gates was pushing his new PBS documentary, and in the course of the conversation he mentioned that opposition to the Affordable Care Act was motivated by racism, even if “subconsciously.”  I thought, “Oh, my. I’ve heard that one before.”

“Before” was some years ago in Wisconsin when I heard a talk by Judy Goldsmith, former head of NOW and, at the time I believe, Dean of the University of Wisconsin-Fond du Lac.  She mentioned in the course of her speech that all white people were racists, we “just didn’t know it.”

I thought, “Wow! What an argument.  How can you say you’re NOT a racist when you don’t know you’re one?”   I also thought, “Gee, Ms. Goldsmith, you and all your likeminded liberal friends are MORONS and don’t know it.”

I take exception to Professor Gates and Ms. Goldsmith about the white subconscious.  Personally, my prejudices about black people are right up front. My “prejudgments” have changed over the years, but I’ve had them almost my entire life.

It all started when I was about 12, when I discovered Louis Armstrong and wanted to BE Louis Armstrong. My parents, wise as parents are, indulged my little fantasy with a well-worn, beat-up trumpet that cost a dollar or two. It took about two weeks for me to figure out I wasn’t going to ever become Louis Armstrong. (As an aside, I wonder how many people today would know who “Satchmo” was or what “Satchmo” means?)

Over the next couple of years, I developed lifelong attachments to a number of other black geniuses, especially  someone I call “The original Edward Kennedy” to confuse one and all, especially libs. (Edward Kennedy ELLINGTON.) In fact, for awhile I believed if you were some shade of “black, brown and beige” that God had gifted you musically.

Today, my prejudgments are of a different order.  When I first meet a black person, my conscious thoughts are:
1. This person doesn’t like me because I’m white.
2. This person thinks racist white America is responsible for all of  black America’s problems.
3. This person thinks welfare is good and there should be more of it.
4. This person thinks affirmative action is good.
5. This person has never read anything by Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, etc.
6. This person votes for Democrats.
7. This person did not earn whatever academic degree claimed.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Pete and your name again??”  (And please prove me wrong about you. All that negative baggage is such a bother.)

Oh, I’m prejudiced all right, in ways I didn’t use to be, and who’s fault is that?  If you say it’s my fault, you’re one of those subconscious morons, you poor thing.  Sadly, our first black president has reinforced my prejudices. No Nelson Mandela he.