Posted on 10/11/2009 8:50:44 PM PDT by smoothsailing
October 11, 2009
Obama and the end of white guilt
By Jeff Lukens
Barack Obama portrayed himself as America's first "post-racial" president, yet he and his supporters continue to play the race card against ordinary Americans who oppose him. Despite a big election victory, Obama is unable to understand that ordinary Americans do not like being bullied. Nor does he understand that they do not like being called racists for political disagreements.
The Obama agenda is desperate and out of ideas. In their desperation, they deal from the bottom of the deck. The race card has never failed them before, and when the logic of their position fails, evoking racism always ends the discussion. Unfortunately for them, this time the discussion will not end. The more they smear everyday Americans with the charge of racism, the more meaningless the accusation becomes.
In the wake of town halls, tea parties and 9/12 protests against Obama's policies, many media pundits — Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, and Newsweek Magazine, to name a few — have branded these patriotic Americans as racists. It is appalling to think that the Left has played this game for decades. Americans of all backgrounds have fought for Civil Rights for too long to have accusations of racism used in such an offhand manner.
Among the many who voted for Obama, there is a growing sense that they have been had. The idea of electing an African-American for president intrigued them. Many voted for Obama with the belief that he was sincere about ending partisan and racial animosities. They believed that he was a new and transformative figure in Washington.
That was then. Now people are wise to his ways and do not like what they see. From runaway deficit spending, to a sputtering economy, to cap and trade, to weak foreign policy, the list of policy failures goes on. The more Obama speaks about his health plan, the more people do not want it. His magical spell may still work in Oslo for a Nobel Prize, but with the public over here, it is gone.
Even with 60 Democrat votes in the Senate, it is doubtful whether Obama will get a health plan passed. He is fading in the polls because everyone knows that his speeches are just words and don't mean anything. It is all a smokescreen to obscure his true agenda of restricting personal freedoms and imposing ever-greater state control.
The Obama presidency is destined to fail due to his doctrine-over-practicality approach to politics, and the impossibility of his plans to succeed. And just as people aren't buying into Obama's policies, people just aren't buying into blind charges of racism either.
Obama and his allies are overplaying the race card so often and so wantonly that such accusations no longer have much meaning. The irony of Obama's presidency is that the demon of white guilt that has haunted the nation since the founding may finally be exorcized. Whatever sense of guilt whites may have felt about the racial injustice in our history has faded with his rise to the presidency.
No matter. With Obama's blessing, Attorney General Eric Holder plans to hire more than 50 new civil rights lawyers to search out racism wherever it can be alleged. Obama's Department of Justice will now set out to undo the emphasis on cases of obvious discrimination, and create a divisive new witch-hunt.
Author, columnist, and research fellow, Shelby Steele wrote his book, "White Guilt," in 2006. According to Steele, the success of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s showed that America's power structure lacked moral authority. White guilt was an attempt by whites to regain that right by attempting to appear benevolent toward blacks, while many African-American leaders took advantage of white guilt to gain handouts such as affirmative action. The result has been troublesome for both races, and for America as a whole.
While we should confront racism when it occurs, over the years it has become rare and marginalized. Only in a country as colorblind ours is could a black man easily win the presidency when white Americans cast the vast majority of the votes.
With the passing of white guilt from the forefront of the national conscience, perhaps the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright, and all the other race hustlers of the land will no longer be taken so seriously. And perhaps the identity politics that has divided the country and sustained the Democrat Party for a half-century can finally be ended.
When Obama and his ways are finally rejected, perhaps then, we can finally live in a country where all will be judged by the "content of their character." This may be one Obama legacy that we can look forward to.
© Jeff Lukens
Sounds good in theory but as long as we have the hundredsif not thousands of raced based groups, laws and otherwise this is a hollow statement.
America deserves much better than this.
By the 2012 elections they can carp about Bush all they want.
All those unemployed will be mad at the dems and ozero by then. Oh yeah, and inflation will take hold along with sky high interest rates by then too.
“Post racial President” has become “most racist _resident”.
It's not the evidence that matters, it is the seriousness of the charge.
I think the "race card" is worn out, when you can allege racism without any proof. This is straight out of the dim playbook.
People have lives and many depend on MSM for reliable news - I personally know several Obama voters who won’t make that mistake again.
...”many depend on MSM for reliable news”...
“Reliable news”. Are you kidding? There is little news coming from the dominant media that can be called “reliable” when it comes to the democrat party and Barack Obama. Instead, there is spin and untruths.
So, unless you define “reliable” to mean information about which the media can lie again...
That was the point....they thought they were getting reliable news .....and voted for zero accordingly. Now they know better. I blame the media for this giant disaster....although McCain wasn’t a good candidate either.
Some libs that thought they were buying racial atonement with their vote have figured out they’ve been RIPPED OFF.
However, there are those that, like someone who got ripped off on a purchase, continues to tout the superiority of the product they bought in order not to admit that they are fools.
I agree with you. Furthermore, I think the financial meltdown was orchestrated by Wall Street, George Soros, the media, and elements of the democrat party to cement the election of Obama. It is “coincidental” in my view that the crash and panic happened at the time McCain/Palin were ahead of Obama/Biden by 5% and starting to separate meaningfully. That was the “October Surprise”, no doubt.
McCain suspending his campaign to go to WDC and voting for the financial rescue package sealed his fate. It was a dumb move by McCain.
Gullible voters bought the fraud, which will prove to be the everlasting detriment of the USA.
I agree with you too.
Me too. I don’t give a damn about their “buyers remorse”. They put him in, they can choke on him. They deserve him.
As a side bar: Gas in the Tampa, Florida went up 6 cents in the last two weeks. The newsaster on the radio said that it was because of the weak dollar abroad. The traitors that put obama in office are starting to get some the “change” that they voted for.
What I despise them for was that they inflicted him on me.
...”What I despise them for was that they inflicted him on me.”...
I’m with you, but double. My spouse is a “greedy physician” and I work in the health insurance industry “den of thieves”. Our household is getting hammered by Obama and the loathesome democrat party parasites from both ends.
That is one of the few good things to have come from this last election. A *lot* of people have had their eyes opened to the true worth of the state-run media.
As analyst Charles Cook notes, 84 House Democrats represent districts that were carried either by George W. Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008, and 48 of those districts were carried by both Bush and McCain.
While it's not a sure thing, both bad and good laws can be repealed, even Amendments. Prohibition of alcohol was repealed. Good law such as the Medicare reform requiring seniors to get catastrophic coverage was repealed soon after it took effect in the late 1980s.
These socialist wealth redistribution schemes have been tried already. They create underground economies and disincentives to work in the regular economy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.