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Why Race Relations Have Gotten So Much Worse
PJ Media ^ | July 10, 2016 | Roger L. Simon

Posted on 07/10/2016 9:33:44 PM PDT by Kaslin

Speaking in the wake of the Dallas horrors, President Obama correctly assured us that race relations are not as bad in this country today as they were during the Watts riots of the sixties.

But that was over fifty years ago and is only part of the story. Throughout the eighties and nineties and into the 21st Century those relations had improved to the extent that none other than the great actor Morgan Freeman could have this 2005 exchange with host Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes.

WALLACE: Black History Month, you find...

FREEMAN: Ridiculous.

WALLACE: Why?

FREEMAN: You're going to relegate my history to a month?

WALLACE: Come on.

FREEMAN: What do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month? Come on, tell me.

WALLACE: I'm Jewish.

FREEMAN: OK. Which month is Jewish History Month?

WALLACE: There isn't one.

FREEMAN: Why not? Do you want one?

WALLACE: No, no.

FREEMAN: I don't either. I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.

WALLACE: How are we going to get rid of racism until...?

FREEMAN: Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You're not going to say, "I know this white guy named Mike Wallace." Hear what I'm saying?

Hear what you're saying? Boy, do I ever. And that part about "Stop talking about it" - nothing makes more sense. Since racist acts were already against the law and had been diminishing, the best way to extinguish, or seriously curtail, the remaining racism was to stop talking about it, to stop making such a big deal about it, to call each other by our names and not our races and let the racial scab slowly heal and disappear.

Just a few years later, the scab appeared very much healed with the inauguration of America's first African-American president, a man who would be elected twice. I didn't vote for him for policy reasons, but his election brought tears to my eyes as a former civil rights worker. America's long nightmare, as Dr. King might have put it, was over, at least as over as things could be in this imperfect world.

But it wasn't - not by a long shot. It went the other way. Driven by what I call in my book "nostalgia for racism," racial enmity was brought back as surely as Michael Corleone was pulled back in in Godfather II.

Why?

Power, of course. The Democratic Party relies on the perceived reality of racism for the identity politics on which it feeds. Racism is the lifeline of the Democrats. Votes lie there.

But beneath this is an even more potent nostalgia, a yearning on the part of many for the days of the civil rights movement, when things were simple, everything was black and white, good and evil, when we knew which side we should be on, what was the right thing.

No longer. Times have changed and grown more complex. Nothing was simple like Bull Connor with that cattle prod. Something had to be invented to return us to those halcyon days. And no one to do that better than Barack Obama - with the aid, of course, of his initial loyal cohort Eric Holder, whose Justice Department recognized no racism except that of whites toward people of color. There could be no other.

Real morality from the civil rights movement had to be reconstituted through moral narcissism, pretense made to trump reality. Hence, the president arranged the beer summit between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and a Cambridge cop who himself showed no evidence of racism, but still somehow needed a White House sit-down. This was followed by Obama's assertion that if he, the privileged Hawaiian who attended a fancy prep school followed by Columbia and Harvard, had had a son, that son would be like hoodie-clad Trayvon Martin -- as absurd an assertion as George W. Bush saying if he had a son, he would be like some teenage redneck biker killed in a bar brawl in Appalachia.

The scab was being scratched, but it didn't end there. Soon we had Ferguson and the Michael Brown affair. A whole city exploded over the obviously false accusation of a cop killing a black man, but the Justice Department and the president couldn't take it for what it was. Instead, they honored the false accusation and fanned the flames. The city of Baltimore became a killing field, not quite matching that other killing field that no one talked about, Chicago.

Soon enough we had people marching through the streets of New York demanding "Dead cops!" and we got them. In spades.

Yes, there were bad cops - and sadly there probably always will be (who wouldn't want fewer?) - but nowhere near the number of cops shooting innocent black (or white) people as there were black people shooting each other. It wasn't and isn't even remotely close. Everyone knows that but few will admit it in public. It isn't politically correct.

Not only had the scab been scratched. It had been scratched with a scouring pad. The result was the "Black Lives Matter" movement.

The rise of that movement is the Devil's version of the civil rights movement. It is a hideous and sick tragedy whose greatest victims are surely black people themselves and whose opera bouffe comic version is represented by its "progressive" allies like that forgettable nitwit who ran for president, Martin O'Malley. You remember him - the guy who, terrified, quickly retracted his "naive" assertion that "All Lives Matter"?

I don't know what Dr. King would have thought about all this. Who could? But I do know from the perspective of someone who, in 1966, was a young man living in a rooming house in Sumter, South Carolina that was owned by Dr. King's cousin and inhabited by some of the sweetest people I have ever met, that this is not what any of us planned on.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: alllivesmatter; blacklivesmatter; obama; obamalegacy
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To: Kaslin
I didn't vote for him for policy reasons, but his election brought tears to my eyes as a former civil rights worker.

Well, something the author and I have in common: Obama's election (and re-election) made me cry, too!

21 posted on 07/11/2016 3:49:18 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
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To: nopardons

“Today’s unrest is ALL down to Obama, Holder, now Lynch, and the MSM lapdogs and moronic talking heads. Not even Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stirred this pot of toxic entitlement, aggrievement, and hate.”
______________________________________________________

100% right on.


22 posted on 07/11/2016 3:58:46 AM PDT by Paulie (America without Christ is like a Chemistry book without the periodic table.)
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To: Kaslin
I believe Hispanics (unwittingly) have done more to damage race relations in this country than anything else.

It was one thing for large numbers of blacks to comprise a permanent underclass in this country. But the black psyche was damaged irreparably when they realized that their own government was dead-set on importing tens of millions of foreigners -- all of whom would instantly be considered a "protected class" themselves -- to replace them in the shrinking working-class job base.

23 posted on 07/11/2016 4:01:36 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Sometimes I feel like I've been tied to the whipping post.")
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To: Mr. Mojo

Obama is just trying to bring to fruition the Black Panther manifesto.


24 posted on 07/11/2016 4:05:46 AM PDT by MissEdie (I am South Carolina Strong.)
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To: Mr. Mojo

Without my usual long narratives, The folks guity as sin for the sad plight of African-Americans in America today is quite simple, they are POTUS, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, the entire Democrat Party, the CBC, the NAACP, etc. Of all the various minorities in th American Republic, “only” African-Americans have these “race” problems, created and sustained by their so-called leaders of the left, and, themselves!!!

Take heed, American people...most Americans get it & the overwhelming number of African-Americans get it...too!!! Have ya noticed how light the number of protesters is very few compared to the thousands that marched during the “civil rights: era!!! Why? Becuase, most American Blacks are coming to realize that they have been thrown under the bus by the Democrat party, going back some fifty years or so, and, Barack Hussein Obama has done zero for them after his failed reign of eight years, as the “first” African-American POTUS!!!

How can any objective person blame the thugs & punks that came to be, which the Obama ghettos have created....by not allowing Blacks to become equipped to move forward in American culture and society, as other minorities have done!!! Being chanined to the Obama “SLAVE” plantation is no way to go through life. But, Black folks have hung in with Obama & company for the few “crumbs” they get thrown their way!!! Thank God, millions of them are now realizing the fatal damage Obama & company have done to them!!!

You notice there are now more and more “conservative and religious Blacks” that get it. Inter-marraige between race has also helped....as it has for so many other ethnic & interrace couples and their “mixed” children!!!
There is still a group of Obamabot, hate mongers, radicals and maniacs among Black folks....but, they will not win this battle for hate, racism and society destruction, Obama/Clinton seeks so eagerly & badly. Folks....Black folks...it’s time to throw Obama, Hillary Clinton, the Democrat Party, etc., and all your vermin poisoned hateful,leaders under bus, and begin to breathe the true air of freedom, liberty, education, opportunites, and positive, peacefull destiny!!!

I suggest you good black folks, all begin this quest tomorrow by not showing up for any event that POTUS Obama attends in Dallas, Texas tomorrow!!! He is your worst enemy....always has been!!! Otherwise, if you choode to elect Ms. Clinton...you will be going nowhere, but will stay right where most of you are right now...on the Democrat Salve Plantation run by Obama/Clinton, Inc.!!!

GO DONALD J. TRUMP!!! Make America great for “ALL” Americans and let all American minorities & “ALL” Americans, be all that they can be with their own energym skills, talents and the good Lord’ leadership!!! Amen!!!


25 posted on 07/11/2016 4:25:19 AM PDT by JLAGRAYFOX (Defeat both the Republican (e) & Democrat (e) political parties....Forever!!!)
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To: Kaslin

Why Race Relations Have Gotten So Much Worse

The reason can be summed up in one word, “Obama”.


26 posted on 07/11/2016 4:40:24 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (The reason for Gun Control has always been Government's Fear of Rebellion.)
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To: Kaslin

The ONLY THING that surprised me is how long it took for Obama to finally ignite the race war he’s been egging on since he stepped into office.

I’ve actually been very impressed by blacks for NOT TAKING THE BAIT and I am optimistic, that with the right leadership, things will again calm down.


27 posted on 07/11/2016 5:04:29 AM PDT by BobL (If Trump is DENIED the nomination, Republican Officeholders WILL GO DOWN in flames)
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To: BuffaloJack

Yeah, and that arrogant, and lying pos claims the country is united. He was the one who divided it/


28 posted on 07/11/2016 5:07:21 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needI have beeed the ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: Alas Babylon!

I didn’t vote for that arrogant pos either. Not because of his color, but I don’t vote for a rat and never have.


29 posted on 07/11/2016 5:11:52 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needI have beeed the ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: Kaslin

Because we’ve been taken over by smooth talkers instead of hard workers.

Nobody who works for a living has time for this BS - just let’s get the job done.

Now all these pseudo-intellectuals and board room panderers have figured out they can bamboozle a large percentage of the population, and damn the torpedoes.


30 posted on 07/11/2016 5:12:40 AM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: Kaslin

Why? Because our Community Organizer has acted stupidly by doing what he does best, AGITATE!


31 posted on 07/11/2016 5:14:00 AM PDT by Chgogal (A woman who votes for Hillary is voting with her vagina and not her brain.)
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To: Chgogal

baraq only knows how to agitate. That is his calling.
When he was running for president, his media followers were crowing about what a wonderful thing community organizers are. Never explaining what community organizing was.


32 posted on 07/11/2016 5:18:09 AM PDT by Texas resident (Obama's enemies are my friends)
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To: Rurudyne

there is no remedy for self induced suffering


33 posted on 07/11/2016 5:19:32 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;+12, 73, ....Opabinia can teach us a lot)
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To: Kaslin
FREEMAN: What do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month? Come on, tell me.

WALLACE: I'm Jewish.

Did I miss something? Is 'white' now a dirty word?

34 posted on 07/11/2016 5:19:49 AM PDT by Oratam
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To: Kaslin

Two words.....BARACK OBAMA


35 posted on 07/11/2016 5:43:09 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Kaslin
Why Race Relations Have Gotten So Much Worse

Because they are purposely stoked with manufactured narratives and protests by Obama and his alinskyite advisors, as a useful political tool to confound and confuse the majority whites in this country.

36 posted on 07/11/2016 6:18:42 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: bert

Especially if, as Lewis wrote of, some people just can’t be happy unless they are miserable.


37 posted on 07/11/2016 6:29:20 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: bert

Heh ... at pretty much the moment I responded to your post a highly educated nitwit was on the TV rambling on with the See-BS This Morning crew about the harm slavery etc as if they were all still with us. Here was a man whose intellect has been hijacked by the very thing I was talking about. He also spoke of, though not to the same effect as I did for he wouldn’t agree with my analysis, the way that one can be keenly aware of any slight and that reinforce the vicarious suffering of the group.

The stories people tell about their families aren’t bad, let me be clear about that; however, the sense that their suffering persists and is communicable to all within a class of Persons, is not merely wrong, but dangerous.


38 posted on 07/11/2016 6:46:00 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: Kaslin
Black history is American history.

That is true.

Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, David Walker, George Schylur, Harriet Tubman, etc. belong to American history, not just black history.

Side note: I found it shocking that Morgan Freeman is an atheist.

39 posted on 07/11/2016 7:25:43 AM PDT by rdb3 (You know, I've yet to see a hearse with a U-Hall trailer hitched to it. . .)
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To: Kaslin

Because of the #1 racist in chief.


40 posted on 07/11/2016 7:29:29 AM PDT by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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