On the canard that Trump is a racist

Montage: Trump condemns racism, hatred, & white nationalism throughout his first term pic.twitter.com/aqP1IYYN5t

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 11, 2019

Don’t Ignore Trump’s Unifying, Anti-Racist Rhetoric

Excerpt:

The myth that President Trump is a kloset Klansman is the Left’s relentless refrain. The first headline T-boned into this lie. And the lie won. This nonstop lie almost totally has eclipsed the fact that Trump has fought hate, racism, and anti-Semitism since before his candidacy:

Comment: Note the change in the NYTimes front pages (Edition #1 to #2)

Debunking The 'Trump is a Racist' Myth—Larry Elder https://t.co/TTEiGxMRfH via @YouTube

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) August 12, 2019

Hate has no place in America. https://t.co/GQfVprhGG2

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 12, 2019

Jason Riley on "The Race Card"

The Race Card Has Gone Bust - America has never been fairer or more integrated, yet politicians obsess over wiping out discrimination.

Excerpt:

Accusations of white racism are all the rage in Washington these days. If you oppose school busing, you’re a racist. If you want immigration laws enforced, you’re a racist. If you’re against slavery reparations or support adding a citizenship question to the census or criticize minority members of Congress, you’re a racist. ...

No reasonable person denies that racists still live among us or that racial discrimination can retard upward mobility. Still, evidence of racial bias in the past or the present is not proof that racism is responsible for current social disparities. After all, the pathologies we see in low-income black communities aren’t confined to those communities. As Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam wrote in 2017, “The white working-class family is today more fragile than the black family was at the time of the famous alarm-sounding 1965 ‘Report on the Negro Family’ by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.”

Liberals who insist that racial discrimination largely explains the black-white wealth gap are ignoring other plausible explanations. Black poverty and employment today, for example, seem to be more a function of family formation than of white racism. For more than 20 years, black married couples have had poverty rates in the single digits, and black married men have had a higher labor-force participation rate than white men who never married. According to The Wall Street Journal, last year the labor-force participation gap between blacks and whites virtually vanished, the first time that’s happened since 1972. Systemic racism may be “in the air we breathe,” but black unemployment rates are at generational lows.

“Family instability and fatherlessness collide with racial and economic disadvantage to create a negative feedback loop in black communities, hampering children’s potential and perpetuating racial inequality,” writes Kay Hymowitz in a recent City Journal essay. Citing new research by John Iceland, a demographer at Penn State University, she notes that “differences in family structure are the most significant variable in explaining the black-white affluence gap. In fact, its importance has grown over time relative to other explanations, including discrimination. Unable to pool earnings with a spouse, to take advantage of economies of scale, and to share child care, black single parents have a tougher time than their married counterparts building a nest egg.”

Government programs are no substitute for the development of human capital. If wealth-redistribution schemes lifted people out of poverty, we would have closed these gaps a long time ago. Liberal politicians and activists have little interest in addressing the ways in which black behavioral choices impact inequality. It’s easier to turn out voters and raise money by equating racial imbalances with racial bias and smearing political opponents who disagree.

Will it work in the end? It didn’t for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Telling people what you think they want to hear can be easier than telling the truth, but you also risk insulting them. And blaming bad outcomes among blacks on the malevolence of others is not only wrong but insulting to Americans of every race. This isn’t 1950. Attitudes have changed. Behaviors have changed. American neighborhoods and schools and marriages are more integrated. We elected a black president twice, and he won several of the nation’s whitest states both times. Racism has probably never been less significant in America, and blacks have never had more opportunities to seize. Liberals are pushing a narrative that many white voters don’t recognize and that many black voters know is false.

Comment: Image below from The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse. Bio on Jason Riley

https://t.co/fd6tIoZQmo

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) August 3, 2019

Racism and other "ism's"

Undoing the Dis-Education of Millennials

Excerpt:

We will have to pull out all of the weeds in your mind as we come across them. Unfortunately, your mind is full of weeds, and this will be a very painful experience. But it is strictly necessary if anything useful, good, and fruitful is to be planted in your head.

There is no formula for this. Each of you has different weeds, and so we will need to take this on the case-by-case basis. But there are a few weeds that infect nearly all of your brains. So I am going to pull them out now.

First, except when describing an ideology, you are not to use a word that ends in “ism.” Communism, socialism, Nazism, and capitalism are established concepts in history and the social sciences, and those terms can often be used fruitfully to gain knowledge and promote understanding. “Classism,” “sexism,” “materialism,” “cisgenderism,” and (yes) even racism are generally not used as meaningful or productive terms, at least as you have been taught to use them. Most of the time, they do not promote understanding.

In fact, “isms” prevent you from learning. You have been taught to slap an “ism” on things that you do not understand, or that make you feel uncomfortable, or that make you uncomfortable because you do not understand them. But slapping a label on the box without first opening the box and examining its contents is a form of cheating. Worse, it prevents you from discovering the treasures hidden inside the box. For example, when we discussed the Code of Hammurabi, some of you wanted to slap labels on what you read which enabled you to convince yourself that you had nothing to learn from ancient Babylonians. But when we peeled off the labels and looked carefully inside the box, we discovered several surprising truths. In fact, we discovered that Hammurabi still has a lot to teach us today.

One of the falsehoods that has been stuffed into your brain and pounded into place is that moral knowledge progresses inevitably, such that later generations are morally and intellectually superior to earlier generations, and that the older the source the more morally suspect that source is. There is a term for that. It is called chronological snobbery. Or, to use a term that you might understand more easily, “ageism.”

Second, you have been taught to resort to two moral values above all others, diversity and equality. These are important values if properly understood. But the way most of you have been taught to understand them makes you irrational, unreasoning. For you have been taught that we must have as much diversity as possible and that equality means that everyone must be made equal. But equal simply means the same. To say that 2+2 equals 4 is to say that 2+2 is numerically the same as four. And diversity simply means difference. So when you say that we should have diversity and equality you are saying we should have difference and sameness. That is incoherent, by itself. Two things cannot be different and the same at the same time in the same way.

Furthermore, diversity and equality are not the most important values. In fact, neither diversity nor equality is valuable at all in its own right. Some diversity is bad. For example, if slavery is inherently wrong, as I suspect we all think it is, then a diversity of views about the morality of slavery is worse than complete agreement that slavery is wrong.

Similarly, equality is not to be desired for its own sake. Nobody is equal in all respects. We are all different, which is to say that we are all not the same, which is to say that we are unequal in many ways. And that is generally a good thing. But it is not always a good thing (see the previous remarks about diversity).

Related to this: You do you not know what the word “fair” means. It does not just mean equality. Nor does it mean something you do not like. For now, you will have to take my word for this. But we will examine fairness from time to time throughout this semester.

Third, you should not bother to tell us how you feel about a topic. Tell us what you think about it. If you can’t think yet, that’s O.K.. Tell us what Aristotle thinks, or Hammurabi thinks, or H.L.A. Hart thinks. Borrow opinions from those whose opinions are worth considering. As Aristotle teaches us in the reading for today, men and women who are enslaved to the passions, who never rise above their animal natures by practicing the virtues, do not have worthwhile opinions. Only the person who exercises practical reason and attains practical wisdom knows how first to live his life, then to order his household, and finally, when he is sufficiently wise and mature, to venture opinions on how to bring order to the political community.

One of my goals for you this semester is that each of you will encounter at least one idea that you find disagreeable and that you will achieve genuine disagreement with that idea. I need to explain what I mean by that because many of you have never been taught how to disagree.

Disagreement is not expressing one’s disapproval of something or expressing that something makes you feel bad or icky. To really disagree with someone’s idea or opinion, you must first understand that idea or opinion. When Socrates tells you that a good life is better than a life in exile you can neither agree nor disagree with that claim without first understanding what he means by “good life” and why he thinks running away from Athens would be unjust. Similarly, if someone expresses a view about abortion, and you do not first take the time to understand what the view is and why the person thinks the view is true, then you cannot disagree with the view, much less reason with that person. You might take offense. You might feel bad that someone holds that view. But you are not reasoning unless you are engaging the merits of the argument, just as Socrates engaged with Crito’s argument that he should flee from Athens.xxx So, here are three ground rules for the rest of the semester.

1. The only “ism” I ever want to come out your mouth is a syllogism. If I catch you using an “ism” or its analogous “ist” — racist, classist, etc. — then you will not be permitted to continue speaking until you have first identified which “ism” you are guilty of at that very moment. You are not allowed to fault others for being biased or privileged until you have first identified and examined your own biases and privileges.
2. If I catch you this semester using the words “fair,” “diversity,” or “equality,” or a variation on those terms, and you do not stop immediately to explain what you mean, you will lose your privilege to express any further opinions in class until you first demonstrate that you understand three things about the view that you are criticizing.
3. If you ever begin a statement with the words “I feel,” before continuing you must cluck like a chicken or make some other suitable animal sound.

Comment: I've been called a racist ... just today for example (below). Several years ago for supporting the policeman in the Ferguson case (that has been thoroughly investigated, by the way). Today (and yesterday) for supporting the police in the Blevins case (see below):

How many accounts do you have?? It takes so much effort to be a racist Trump troll.

— Old Picture of Dorianna Gray (@blurbette) July 31, 2018

As an aside - my family shed blood to end slavery!

The laughable view that all white people are racists:https://t.co/iImd2Dxw4o pic.twitter.com/SPhlwtH1RM

— James Peet (@jrpeet) August 5, 2018

Ten Postulates on Race

1. There is one race: “[God] made from one man [Adam] every nation of mankind” (Acts 17:26) – Read about creation starting in Genesis 1!
2. Skin color differentiation is a false paradigm. Skin thickness varies from 0.5mm on your eyelids to 4mm or more on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. Color is literally “skin deep” and that’s not very deep!
3. All men (human beings) are made in the “image of God” (Genesis 9:6) and have intrinsic worth. This is true from the baby in the womb to the senile and aged cripple!
4. There is no supreme race. In fact, our entire race is fallen and sinful. Yet “The Lord redeems … those who take refuge in Him” (Psalm 34:22)
5. “[God] commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by [the Lord Jesus Christ]” (Acts 17:30-31)
6. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (The Declaration of Independence – a foundational truth for our Republic!)
7. Hate is the antithesis of the Gospel because God loves all of mankind: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)
8. Christ has called on us to “love our enemies” (Matthew 5:43-48)
9. We are called to be peacemakers: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9)
10. Violence is to be eschewed! “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” (Romans 12:19)

Tim Keller says it better than I:

Race, the Gospel, and the Moment https://t.co/P7zJYfPmpM via @TGC

— James Peet (@jrpeet) August 15, 2017

pic.twitter.com/kFCAghT7a2

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 17, 2017

Why Were The Police Held Back In Charlottesville? https://t.co/udBzPlInn4 via @dailycaller

— James Peet (@jrpeet) August 17, 2017

The Lessons of History and the Heresy of #RacialSuperiorityhttps://t.co/K1PY3JfQk2 pic.twitter.com/XrcBPKmtrB

— James Peet (@jrpeet) August 17, 2017

5 Facts about the alt-right https://t.co/9Gmoz0NZ1v

— James Peet (@jrpeet) August 18, 2017

Many of the authors, commentators and journalists who spend all their energy thinking and talking about race today fail to acknowledge how much has improved with regard to race in this country, writes Rodney Stevens https://t.co/18tgAw5Owg via @WSJ

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 - [Anthony calls me Bandhu (बंधु)] (@jrpeet) December 29, 2020

St. Olaf College: The racist note that never was

St. Olaf: Report of racist note on black student's windshield was 'fabricated'. School president made the revelation after first not disclosing the validity of the note but saying its author had confessed.

Excerpt:

Wells said that the anonymous typewritten note left on her windshield said in total: "I am so glad you are leaving soon. One less [N-word] this school has to deal with. You have spoken up too much. You will change nothing. Shut up or I will shut you up."

Also Wednesday, Northfield police told the Star Tribune that they have closed their investigation into the note, explaining that Wells was unwilling to seek the filing of a criminal case. Wells said in an e-mail Friday to the lead investigator that "I have decided that I am not going to be filing a report." The student said she would be graduating soon, leaving for Europe in June and "would rather not spend the end of my college career and my last month and a half in the U.S. worrying about an investigation."

With Wells' bowing out, police have closed the case and released their file on it. The file pointed out that police did not see the note because Wells "took [it] outside and had a 'ceremonial' burning to destroy it." Wells said she destroyed the note "because she didn't want to look at it or have it anywhere near her," the police file read.

Comment: Previous: St. Olaf campus leaders call for boycott of classes over racist note More Image source

It's in our DNA!

Obama uses 'n-word' in interview about US race relations

Excerpt:

Mr Obama acknowledged that attitudes about race in the US have improved since his childhood, but he said that America's history of enslaving black people "casts a long shadow and that's still part of our DNA that's passed on".

Romans 3:10-18:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 

All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

“Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.”

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Comment: We are sinners and need redemption! Christ is the only answer! Image source

Race riot among the same race?

Food fight erupts into melee at Minneapolis South High School
Excerpt:

A cafeteria fight at Minneapolis South High School escalated into a melee involving hundreds of students Thursday, spurred by what parents and students said are growing racial tensions between Somali-American students and others. Police said that 200 to 300 students shoved, kicked and threw bottles at one other and that extra Minneapolis police officers were called in to break up the fighting. Three students and one staff member were taken to a hospital for medical treatment, and police said rioting and disorderly conduct charges could be filed. "We're very fortunate no one got seriously injured," said police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer, adding that in 19 years, "I honestly can't recall a [similar] situation of this magnitude." While school district leaders said they didn't know what sparked the fights, students such as Adnan Farah said they were the culmination of increasing racial tensions. "This school is not safe for Somali students," said Farah, a junior. "Throughout this year, there have been a lot of fights."

Comment: The Star Tribune article is not that clear but the WCCO reporting was:

“I seen a good 300 kids fighting; a big riot,” Abdi Sheikh said. “Punches to the face, everything. Guys beating girls up. Disrespectful things, man.” The fight started during the first lunch period, and escalated into a full brawl by the third lunch period. Witnesses say a fight between an African American girl and a Somali girl made the situation even more tense

Comment: My take is that it is legacy black vs new (minority) black. Karma?

Unpolitical Correctness

WSJ: Ben Carson for President - The Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon has two big ideas for America.

Excerpt:

Dr. Carson tossed over the PC police years ago. Raised by a single mother in inner-city Detroit, he was as he tells it "a horrible student with a horrible temper." Today he's director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and probably the most renowned specialist in his field. Late in his talk he dropped two very un-PC ideas. The first is an unusual case for a flat tax: "What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the universe, God, and he's given us a system. It's called a tithe.

... Not surprisingly, a practicing physician has un-PC thoughts on health care: "Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed—pretax—from the time you're born 'til the time you die. If you die, you can pass it on to your family members, and there's nobody talking about death panels. We can make contributions for people who are indigent. Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're gong to learn how to be responsible." The Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon may not be politically correct, but he's closer to correct than we've heard in years.

Comment: Image source (1st) - atheism site. 2nd: 20 Outrageous Examples That Show How Political Correctness Is Taking Over America. Ben Carson

Patrick J. Buchanan: A Brief for Whitey. Snopes verified
Full:

How would he pull it off? I wondered.

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?

How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about “the U.S. of K.K.K. America,” and howled, “God damn America!”

My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright’s statements were “controversial,” and “divisive,” and “racially charged,” reflecting a “distorted view of America.”

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

The “white community,” said Barack, must start “acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds … .”

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The “white community” must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with “ladders of opportunity” that were “unavailable” to Barack’s and the Rev. Wright’s generations.

What is wrong with Barack’s prognosis and Barack’s cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”

Was “white racism” really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said — that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new “ladders of opportunity” for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for “deserving” white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

College scholarships meant only for Whites?

White student lauded after returning college scholarship meant for blacks

 Excerpt:

The scholarship application itself stated only that African-Americans were “encouraged” to apply. Warren applied online and apparently never saw a separate letter sent to school counselors specifying that it was for black students.

Comment: Here's my question. Suppose a group of us got together and funded a scholarship only for Whites. Would that be racism?

Trayvon Martin: Take a deep breath and wait for Lady Justice

Rush to judgment in Trayvon Martin case

 Excerpt:

It's clear that some of the people raising the most noise are trying to make this less about the horrible death of a young man and more about claims of racial resentment that may or may not exist.

The loudest voices should be particularly careful not to rush to conclusions. Remember the Duke lacrosse case, in which members of the team were accused of a gang rape. The public rushed to judgment long before the young men were eventually acquitted.

Zimmerman may or may not be guilty; there may or may not be racial motivations. We do not know yet. In the absence of complete evidence, inflammatory comments and belligerent reactions will not aid the search for justice. An angry crowd should not be in charge.

Comment: William J. Bennett's editorial reflects my view.

He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him. (Proverbs 18:13)

Image: Lady Justice

Will Blacks hold Obama accountable for his policies?

Vote For Obama Because He's Black

Excerpt:

Some of his strongest, high-profile supporters in the black community are now saying that Obama's race, alone, should be enough for black voters to vote for his re-election.

Krissah Thompson of The Washington Post reports that on "The Tom Joyner Morning Show," which has an estimated 8 million radio listeners, Joyner, who is black, said, "Stick together, black people." The show reaches one in four African-American adults.

Rev. Al Sharpton, who also has a radio show and a gig on MSNBC, admonished blacks who have been critical of the president, "I'm not telling you to shut up. I'm telling you: Don't make some of us have to speak up."

...

In the same week the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was dedicated in Washington, Joyner and Sharpton are saying that Barack Obama should be judged not on the content of his character and policies, but rather on the color of his skin. How sad. How racist.


If a black president cannot be held accountable for his policies and must receive the votes of African-Americans solely because of his race, then all of the marching for equal rights has been for nothing. The question ought to be this: are African-Americans, indeed, are all Americans, better off than they were when Barack Obama took office? By any objective standard, the answer must be "no." How do black people expect their circumstances to improve if Obama is elected for another four years? If they conclude they will not, why not vote for someone who can create the conditions under which more of them might get a job, for example? Black unemployment is 16.7 percent, the highest it's been in 27 years.

Comment: To answer the question: "Will Blacks hold Obama accountable for his policies?" ... I doubt it!

On Obama’s dropping of his g’s and how effortlessly “he can switch into that [black] dialect.”

AP Labeled “Racist” For Accurately Transcribing Obama Speech

Excerpt:

During his speech, Obama attempted to fool the black audience into thinking he was one of them and not a paid teleprompter reader for Wall Street by dropping the g’s at the end of his words.

“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” Obama lectured the audience. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

However, after the Associated Press accurately transcribed Obama’s dropped g’s, MSNBC aired a debate segment asking whether the decision not to “clean up” Obama’s words was “racist”.

“On MSNBC, the African-American author Karen Hunter complained the news service transcribed Obama’s speech without cleaning it up as other outlets did–specifically including the “dropped g’s,” reports Yahoo News.

“Hunter called the AP’s version “inherently racist,” sparring with New Republic contributing editor and noted linguistics expert John McWhorter, who argued the g-less version “is actually the correct one,” noting that the president’s victory in the 2008 election was due, in part, to how effortlessly “he can switch into that [black] dialect.”

It goes without saying that Hunter’s claim is completely ridiculous. Obama’s dropping of his g’s was blatantly deliberate. If the AP had “cleaned up” his speech it would have been completely misleading and inaccurate.

Hunter claimed the AP transcriber didn’t “fix” Obama’s grammar because of the color of his skin, while failing to mention the fact that transcripts of George W. Bush’s speeches were routinely transcribed (accurately) by including dropped g’s and other idiosyncratic styles of speech. She then ventured further into the realms of absurdity, claiming the AP writer was using a secret “code” through which to express his racism.

Comment: I hope black votes consider the 27-Year High On Black Unemployment

Black unemployment shot up like a rocket during the month of August, rising from an abysmal 15.9 percent to an even more shocking 16.7 percent. Much of the increase was driven by Black male unemployment, which rose from 17 to 18 percent. Black female unemployment remained steady at 13.4 percent, and Black teen unemployment experienced a dramatic increase from 39.2 percent to an astounding 46.5 percent.

White Men Can't Run

Race factors into evaluation of Gerhart

Excerpt:

When NFL scouts look at Gerhart, they see a 6-foot, 231-pound power back who ran for 1,871 yards and 27 touchdowns last season, getting edged out by Alabama’s Mark Ingram in the closest Heisman vote in history. When they look at Gerhart’s numbers from the NFL scouting combine, they see that he ran a 4.50-second 40-yard dash and registered a 38-inch vertical leap, both impressive numbers for a player his size.

Yet they also see a white guy trying to make it in the league as a feature back, something that has become increasingly rare in this era. Peyton Hillis(notes), now with the Cleveland Browns, led the Denver Broncos in rushing yards in 2008, but was limited to just 54 last season in part because of 2009 draft pick Knowshon Moreno’s(notes) addition.

Race shouldn’t be an issue, of course, but Gerhart can’t help but believe that it has colored the opinions of at least some potential employers.

“One team I interviewed with asked me about being a white running back,” Gerhart says. “They asked if it made me feel entitled, or like I felt I was a poster child for white running backs. I said, ‘No, I’m just out there playing ball. I don’t think about that.’ I didn’t really know what to say.”

One longtime NFL scout insisted that Gerhart’s skin color will likely prevent the Pac-10’s offensive player of the year from being drafted in Thursday’s first round.

“He’ll be a great second-round pickup for somebody, but I guarantee you if he was the exact same guy – but he was black – he’d go in the first round for sure,” the scout said. “You could make a case that he’s a Steven Jackson-type – doesn’t have blazing speed but he’s strong and powerful and versatile.”

Comment: A variation of White Men Can't Jump

On the UNCF and NAACP

'Slap In The Face'? 'Negro' Is On 2010 Census; Update: It's Been There Before



Excerpt:

The Census Bureau says it includes "Negro" as a way for individuals to classify their race in the 2010 Census because some older African-Americans wrote it on their forms in 2000.

But many African-Americans find it insulting.

-- "It's almost like a slap in the face," Nikyle Fitzgerald tells WTOL in Toledo.

-- "I am a little offended," Dawud Ingram says to WCBS-TV.

-- "It's a bad vibe word," Kevin Bishop says in the New York Daily News.

Comment:

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF)

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP

"Negro" definition

More: I had my face slapped by my Father back in the 50's for calling someone a "n*gger" I was sitting in the back seat of our '54 Ford wagon and we were driving in the "colored area" of Fort Wayne Indiana (where we lived at the time). I don't remember specifically what I said but I know that the sentence included the "N-word". I might have been 7 or 8. The Ford wagons weren't much bigger than a compact car back then. Dad's big arm swung from the front drivers seat to the back seat an his hand landed hard and fast on my little pink face. There was a lesson learned! Dad said ... "they are negros!". At 60 I have so few memories from the 50's .... I remember the birth of my brother in 1953. Buying the '54 Ford in ... 1954 .... and I'm sure scores of others. But that hand slap was an education. It's wrong to be a racist. It is wrong denigrate another based upon race. I agree with Martin Luther King, Jr. - "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin". I'm not going to do that. This isn't a new thing ... goes back more than 50 years.

I'm come to understand theologically that there is but one human race! And we are all descended from Adam. Answers in Genesis has a great article about that: Are there really different races?

I used the "N-Word" ... not the one mentioned above ... but the "Negro" word in the late '60's and got a figurative hand slap from a black man who told me indignantly that they were not Negros but black people. I'm ok with that too but to all black Americans you really more tan than black. I know black ... one of my best friends is Joseph, a co-worker from Nigeria!

By the way, I am an Uncle to three black Americans. I love the like my other nieces and nephews and pray for them by name!

Of course the other race denominator is "African American". I suggest that most African Americans about about as African as my wife is German, my Sister-in-law is Irish or I am English. Most of us have been here long enough to just be Americans. It's interesting that the Somalis I know don't call themselves African Americans.

Maybe it's time to just drop the "race" question all together! I'd like to think Martin Luther King Jr. might just smile!

No white enough to be civil rights hero?!

From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History

Excerpt:

“Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all,” Ms. Colvin said in an animated interview at a diner near her apartment in the Parkchester section of the Bronx. “Maybe by telling my story — something I was afraid to do for a long time — kids will have a better understanding about what the civil rights movement was about.”

Ms. Colvin made her stand on March 2, 1955, and Mrs. Parks made hers on Dec. 1 that same year. Somehow, as Mrs. Parks became one of Time Magazine’s 100 most important people of the 20th century, and streets and schools were named after her, Ms. Colvin managed to let go of any bitterness. After Ms. Colvin was arrested, Mrs. Parks, a seasoned N.A.A.C.P. official, sometimes let her spend the night at her apartment. Ms. Colvin remembers her as a reserved but kindly woman who fixed her snacks of peanut butter on Ritz crackers.

“My mother told me to be quiet about what I did,” Ms. Colvin recalled. “She told me: ‘Let Rosa be the one. White people aren’t going to bother Rosa — her skin is lighter than yours and they like her.’ ”

Comment: Where's Jesse Jackson when you need him!

The Liberal Paradigm:: Sheep, wolves, and shepherds

Obama and the Liberal Paradigm: The sheep are quite capable of looking out for themselves. Someone tell the Democrats

Excerpt:

What is [the Liberal Paradigm]? The basic premise is that the population is divided into three groups. By far the largest group consists of ordinary people. They are good, God fearing and hard working. But they are also often ignorant of their true self-interest ("What's the matter with Kansas?") and thus easily misled. They are also politically weak and thus need to be protected from the second group, which is politically strong.

The second group, far smaller, are the affluent, successful businessmen, corporate executives and financiers. Capitalists in other words. They are the establishment and it is the establishment that, by definition, runs the country. They are, in the liberal paradigm, smart, ruthless and totally self-interested. They care only about personal gain.

And then there is the third group, those few, those happy few, that band of brothers, the educated and enlightened liberals, who understand what is really going on and want to help the members of the first group to live a better and more satisfying life. Unlike the establishment, which supposedly cares only for itself, liberals supposedly care for society as a whole and have no personal self-interest.

Thus the liberal paradigm divides the American body politic into sheep, wolves, and would-be shepherds. The shepherds must defeat the efforts of the wolves.

Comment: Very good read! More on racism:

The Congressional Black Caucus still routinely sees a pervasive racism, even though both the president of the United States and the chairman of the Republican National Committee are black.

On nastiness in politics:

[The Liberal Paradigm] has largely congealed into a political religion, especially in the nearly 30 years since Ronald Reagan shifted the nation's political center of gravity, just as FDR had done 48 years earlier. Since liberals care about the sheep, all who disagree with liberalism must not, making them morally inferior if not downright immoral. Thus the nastiness in American politics is largely on the left. Whatever you think of Sarah Palin, her treatment in the liberal press was ugliness personified.

On today's conservatives (of which I count myself!)

[Today's conservatives] want to utilize the great power of markets to force efficiency, drive down costs, and drive up yields. But liberals refuse to engage those ideas, simply because they are not liberal ideas and must, therefore, be wrong if not the latest plot by the wolves to exploit the sheep.

My hope:

But in a world where a majority of Americans work at white-collar jobs, have high-school and college degrees, own their own homes, and hold financial securities in their own right, the so-called wolves are now a majority. If liberals don't begin to take that fact into account in formulating policy, the Obama administration will not only be an unsuccessful liberal administration, it may well be the last liberal administration.

Final comments:

• Sadly the nastiness in politics is not just a liberal problem.
  
• Before Senate Democrats pass the Cap and Trade (already passed by the house) and before the Pelosi-Reid Health Care reform passes, I hope some of the Blue Doggers bark some sense into the Democratic party!
  

Racial paranoia is a great vote-getter

Not quite so post-racial after all - To think that a career polarizer could unite us was wishful thinking

Excerpt:

As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the “racial profiling” issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in Cambridge.

For those who are interested in facts – and these obviously do not include President Obama – there has been a serious study of racial profiling in a book titled “Are Cops Racist?” by Heather Mac Donald. Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted beyond recognition by politics.

The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in racial paranoia.

Comment: Click through to the article and note the race of the author of this piece! Sent to me by my son! (Thanks Rog!)

Obama Defends ... Commissioner "deeply pained"

Obama Defends Criticism of Cambridge Police in Arrest of Gates

Excerpt:

Cambridge Police Department Commissioner Robert C. Haas said in a press conference late Thursday that his department was "deeply pained" by the president's comments yesterday.

"We take our professional pride very deeply. ... And when I talked to the officers... you could see they were really stunned," Haas told reporters, adding that they took "those comments to heart" and "were very much deflated."

Haas said the department "deeply regrets the situation" but also stood behind Sgt. James Crowley, who arrested Gates for disorderly conduct.

"I believe that Sgt. Crowley acted in a way that's consistent with his training and national standards," Haas said. "I don't believe in any way that his actions were racially motivated."

"Based on what I have seen, he maintained a professional decorum through the entire situation and maintained himself in a professional manner," Haas added.

Haas said a professional panel will be assembled to investigate and analyze the incident, and added that, "The whole story hasn't been told."

Comment: Hey President Obama ... quit micromanaging the country!

Crowley: "I am not a racist"

Comment: Obama plays the race card: Despite not knowing all facts (see quote below) and his admission that he is "a little biased", Obama calls the police officer's actions stupid! See full police report below.

Obama: Police who arrested professor 'acted stupidly'

Excerpt:

President Obama said that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor last week after a confrontation at the man's home.

I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played," Obama said Wednesday night while taking questions after a White House news conference.

Cambridge authorities dropped disorderly conduct charges against Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Tuesday.

Obama defended Gates on Wednesday night, while admitting that he may be "a little biased," because Gates is a friend.

"But I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 ... that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

The incident, Obama said, shows "how race remains a factor in this society."

READ THE POLICE REPORT!!!

Police Report

More:

Officer in Gates case says he won't apologize

Excerpt:

Sergeant James Crowley, the Cambridge police officer who arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week and touched off a firestorm of controversy, said today he would not agree to Gates's demand for an apology.

Crowley also said the arrest was not racially motivated. "I am not a racist," he said in an interview this evening in his hometown of Natick.

Crowley arrested Gates, a leading authority on African-American history, last Thursday during the investigation of a report of a break-in at Gates's home in Cambridge. The arrest happened just after Gates arrived home from the filming of a PBS documentary in China. His front door was stuck shut, and his taxi driver helped him pry it open.

According to the subsequent police report, a woman called to report two black men trying to force their way into a house. Crowley said in the report that Gates became disruptive and was arrested for disorderly conduct, but Gates has denied that he was disorderly.

Comment: Gates and Obama played the race card!

The wrong guy was placed on paid administrative leave

Principal on leave after words with Minneapolis board member

Excerpt:

A southwest Minneapolis school principal was placed on paid administrative leave Monday after an unannounced visit from a school board member escalated into an argument between the two men last week that included charges of racism, district parents said.

Board Member Chris Stewart made a surprise visit to Burroughs Elementary School on Friday during which he called Burroughs Principal Tim Cadotte and the entire school community racist, parents said.

Comment: If the facts stand, that board member called "the entire school community racist", then he should be forced to resign from the school board!