Post-racial claim belied by Obama speech

The current furor over Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright reminds me of another seldom discussed contradiction within the Democratic party: The self-described party of inclusion is obsessed with the divisive issue of race. As a conservative I am not surprised by this, because I have long accepted that the Left is deeply attracted to the narrative of victimization and oppression at the hands of "the man" -- whether that be white males, corporations, the "government" or others wielding power in our society. I've written numerous times about the "cult of victimization" that I see among liberals that essentially takes two forms: those who feel victimized by power and those who are part of the power class but feel guilty about it. Thus you see strange bedfellows on the Left -- poor blacks, illegal immigrants, union workers, media elite and Hollywood stars all in a messy millieu of fear, guilt, anxiety and prodigious amounts of anger. In this context, the reaction to Jeremiah Wright and the Obama speech that sought to explain it is both understandable and disturbing. Obama's ability to deliver a moving speech on the subject of race was an impressive act for a candidate who has excelled at being the "non-racial candidate". His speech was rich with his personal history and attempted to put Wright's sermons in a broader context. To his credit, he did go a long way toward repudiating Wright and the comments that have gotten endless play on YouTube:

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

Those "statements", you'll recall, relate a whole host of incendiary comments about how America deserved the attacks on 9/11, how whites created the AIDS virus as a weapon against the black community -- and on and on and on.

Obama is careful, however, to not repudiate Wright "the man", even if separating the man and the preacher is exceedingly hard to do:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Thus, for Obama, Wright's comments and their acceptance in the black community are rooted in fear -- the same kind of fear of black men his white grandmother had expressed to him in the past. This gives Wright's hateful, angry speech a legitimacy that it doesn't deserve -- as if they are on par with the words of his beloved grandmother. It's disturbing double speak: Obama repudiates the views of Wright without actually repudiating the base sentiment, or the man who delivered them. He then goes on to cite a litany of tired arguments about Jim Crow laws and historical race discrimination -- all of which he uses to explain why the black community is so angry and distrustful for white America.

Obviously, much of what Obama says is true: there has been a history of slavery and black oppression in America. That is undeniable. The important question is: Does it really still exist to the level that blacks apparently believe it does? Not only is Jim Crow long dead, but so is "Separate but Equal" and other legal and structural barriers to equality. Those barriers were put permanently to rest by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark legislation that incidentally was sponsored by white Democrats and Republicans in the Congress, and was signed by a white southern president. Through Affirmative Action and other preferences, blacks have actually by law been given real systemic advantages over whites for over 40 years. In my view, there is a deep contradiction in the words of Jeremiah Wright and his brand of black separation theology and the plain facts that are clear to anyone willing to look honestly at this issue.

My own honest view of race, the black community and the Democratic party includes the following:

-- There is a gulf between the races in America -- but it is as much a creation of the black community and "leaders" such as Jeremiah Wright who are underwritten by the Democratic party, as it is a product of real white-based racism.

-- The vitriol of Jeremiah Wright and other separatists in the black community is rooted in the 1960s -- the anger of Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and other revolutionaries who lived in an age when real discrimination and racism was both accepted and sponsored by the state. But that was then. Today, the notion that blacks are systematically "kept down" by a "white America" is not consistent with the world we live in -- where a Barack Obama can go to Harvard and be within a hair of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States!

-- The core theology of Wright and other pastors in the black community is consistent with the race-based victimization mantra of the Jesse Jackson's of the world. In this way it is a self-fulfilling dogma that not only fails to empower, but also destroys the desire and ability of blacks in America to take individual responsibility for their lives -- and to join the mainstream community where education, jobs and prosperity are available to them. Why is it so hard to accept that if one black man or woman can rise to become an executive or a lawyer in America today, then that avenue is open to all blacks in America?

-- The broader Democratic party -- and white liberals in particular -- act to reinforce the notion of an ingrained, systemic racism in this country. The net effect of this is to give blacks and the black community a "pass" on both what they say and what they do. Nicholas Kristof, the liberal white columnist for the New York Times, wrote a piece after Obama's speech that illustrates this perfectly. For example, on the issue of Wright's remarks, Kristof basically acts to translate Wright's angry words that are clearly hostile to white America:

Many well-meaning Americans perceive Mr. Wright as fundamentally a hate-monger who preaches antagonism toward whites. But those who know his church say that is an unrecognizable caricature: He is a complex figure and sometimes a reckless speaker, but one of his central messages is not anti-white hostility but black self-reliance.

So, for Kristof, the way to black self-reliance is through race-bashing white America. He goes on:

Many white Americans seem concerned that Mr. Obama, who seems so reasonable, should enjoy the company of Mr. Wright, who seems so militant, angry and threatening. To whites, for example, it has been shocking to hear Mr. Wright suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people.That may be an absurd view in white circles, but a 1990 survey found that 30 percent of African-Americans believed this was at least plausible. (Just as) many African-Americans even believe that the crack cocaine epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by the United States government to destroy black neighborhoods.

Thus, Wright's words aren't the problem, nor is the misguided belief among blacks that there is actually truth to what he says. The problem is racism. It is white racism that causes blacks to do crack, to drop out of the free education they are provided, to destroy their neighborhoods and to foster repeat generations of black children in single parent households.

Liberals like Kristof won't dare mention the notion of personal responsibility, nor point out the obvious absurdity that giving Wright a pass on his rhetoric because others in the black community hold the same beliefs is pandering to the lowest common denominator. Such honesty would conflict with their own deep-seated sense of "white guilt" over the predicament that blacks are in. Apologize and justify -- that's the liberal solution to the race issue in America today.

The irony, of course, is this: white guilt that apologizes for black racism and that serves to further legitimize the victimization and self-segregation of blacks only serves to destroy their best hope for eliminating racial inequality: real assimilation. That is the message that Democrats and Barack Obama should be giving the black community. His speech on race and his handling of the Wright issue fell far short of that, and proves again that he is not the post-racial candidate he claims himself to be.

Walk in their shoes

(Townhall.com, Mar. 22) Imagine being told as a child: "You carry bad blood." Then imagine this stigma was placed on you by one side of your family, in reference to your heritage from the other side of the family. I honestly can't begin to imagine how that would have felt or what it would have done to me. But I think it would have marked me unforgettably. It would have stayed with me for a long time, even if I ultimately overcame it and went on to have a successful life and feel good about myself. Then try to imagine looking in the mirror as you're growing up, and having the whole society where you live send much the same message about your bloodlines and those of your relatives and everyone else who looks like you. I can't imagine that either. Even the effort to walk in those shoes gives me a stab of pain, the sense of a soul-deadening burden. These two scenarios describe, I believe without unfair exaggeration, the personal experience of Sen. Barack Obama and the collective experience of most black Americans for almost 400 years now. They've been on my mind since reading (not hearing) Obama's speech on race in American life, given March 18 in Philadelphia amid controversy over the Afrocentric, anti-American sermons of his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama didn't say his mother's mother told him in so many words that he carried bad blood. But that's the implication I take from his comments about the white grandmother's unthinking racial slurs and her expressed fear of black men. "That's me," the young boy might think. "That's my dad." Would it hurt? Would it stay with you? How could it not?

So I am not particularly offended, as many of my fellow conservatives have been, by Obama's mention of this experience in his speech. Rather I'm troubled by it. It stirs me. It takes me way out of my comfort zone, which is probably not a bad thing.

His implied equation of grandma's momentary private prejudices or bigotry with Rev. Wright's years of public rage and race-baiting does have a note of intellectual dishonesty that reflects poorly on the senator's fitness for the presidency. Yet that doesn't negate the object lesson we all have an opportunity to learn from this uncomfortable episode of the past week.

What we've seen and heard on the Trinity Church video clips -- the enthusiasm of the congregation, even more than the ranting of the pastor -- along with the constructive candor from Obama himself about seldom-discussed issues of resentment and stereotyping between blacks and whites, challenges us to walk in the shoes of African-Americans more empathetically than most of us (me for sure) may ever have done before.

And that again is probably not a bad thing, whatever you think of Barack's aspiration to the White House (I'm having none of it). What would be a bad thing is if we conservatives let this teachable moment slip away in a storm of self-righteous scolding toward the admittedly awful Jeremiah Wright and the admittedly confused folks who think he's on target.

People who are hurting tend to say hurtful things; anyone who's ever been in a bitter family or marital quarrel knows that. And you don't move toward reconciliation and healing in a toxic situation like that, merely by telling the other person (wrong as he may be) to grow up, get over it, stop being childish. You start by trying to understand, by walking in their shoes, and then slowly work back toward civil conversation with the emotional level dialed down. I can't see that it's any different in our multiracial American family of 300 million than in the blood families you and I belong to. Or is it? Tell me what I'm missing.

Let me repeat, just to be clear: Barack Obama is the wrong man to be President of the United States. Though brilliant and gifted, he is too far left, too inexperienced, and yes, too slippery and manipulative. All of those qualities, positive and negative, were evident this week in his speech on race. Michelle Obama is the wrong woman to be First Lady, and Jeremiah Wright is the wrong man to be visiting the Oval Office as spiritual advisor. Neither of them understands America well enough or, it would seem, loves her as she deserves -- warts and all.

But with that said, if these three fellow Americans of ours have provided the rest of us a chance to walk in the shoes of a long-suffering racial group that Lincoln warned would take centuries to knit back fully into our national family, it's too good a chance to miss. No matter what else comes out of the 2008 campaign, that could be one of this year's true blessings. Do as you choose, but I'll be damned if I'm passing it up.

Cross-posted on PoliticsWest.com

Our self-indulgence spells fiscal folly

We are Americans, and we want the best. Now! Instant gratification has become the American ethos. In roughly three generations, American society has been transformed from a nation of penny-pinchers, scrimpers and savers to a nation of consumption-addicted spendthrifts oblivious to tomorrow. Despite the second-highest per capita income in the world, we save next to nothing. As late as the mid-1980s, the savings rate regularly exceeded 10 percent.

Once upon a time, families actually saved to purchase a home. Young people saved money from their summer jobs to purchase a car. People even saved to prepare for unforeseen trouble or opportunity — "a rainy day."

Forgoing spending to save for something important taught crucial disciplines of delayed gratification and prudent spending. After several years of sacrificing certain comforts or pleasures, we are much more diligent to make certain that what we buy will last, to take care of that purchase, and to understand contracts before signing them.

That personal stake is absent from purchases that require little more than a promise to make future payments. When we have no skin in the game, it seems we have nothing to lose. As a result, Americans have amassed $2.5 trillion in household debt — more than $23,000 per household.

It's no wonder that we transfer that same instant gratification ethos to government. When we the people fail to practice self-discipline at home, we cannot possibly be serious about fiscal restraint in government.

Politicians of all stripes use our shortsightedness to their advantage. With rare exceptions, the populace doesn't embrace candidates who call for tough choices. That's why elections are typically won by the candidate who tells the most people what they want to hear.

For the last 30 years, high school students have learned virtually nothing about the proper limits of government, although they may hear that government should "stay out of your bedroom," which facilitates more instant gratification.

Nearly 200 years ago, Frederic Bastiat wrote: "Government is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

It used to be that politicians sought to ingratiate themselves to the masses by vowing to tax "the rich." By now, most voters are savvy enough to realize that "rich" means everyone with a job and a pulse.

So candidates now promise more government goodies – health care and mortgage bailouts – at the expense of our children and grandchildren. They won't say it that plainly because we wouldn't fall for it if they did. But that's exactly what is happening.

When Congress and President Bush rushed to pass their popgun economic "stimulus" package, they increased the current year's deficit by more than 150 percent and charged another $152 billion to future generations.

The federal debt is more than $5 trillion — $48,359 per household. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We owe another $5 trillion to federal employees and veterans for health care and retirement benefits.

However, the cost of retirement and health care programs for the general public really shafts our children and grandchildren. The unfunded cost of providing Social Security and Medicare benefits to everyone alive today is more than $45 trillion. That's not the total cost; it's the cost that cannot be covered by existing revenues.

The board of trustees of these two programs says the promises we've made to ourselves "are not sustainable under current financing arrangements." Social Security's existing surpluses will "turn into rapidly growing deficits as the baby boom generation retires."

"Medicare's financial status is even worse," the trustees warn. That should make any clear-thinking American recognize the sheer foolishness of creating a new health care entitlement for everyone.

Too many Americans, whipped into a frenzy by groups like AARP, prefer to sentence our children or grandchildren to stratospheric tax rates than to consider simply slowing the growth of future benefits. Without changes, government will grow from an historic cost of about 18 percent of GDP to 30 percent in just 22 years. In some 40 years, spending will consume 50 percent of GDP — more even than during World War II.

Our decisions today determine if we will saddle our children and grandchildren with an unrestrained government that drains the economy and makes the dollar virtually worthless.

If we hope to secure the blessings of liberty for our posterity, we must force our leaders to confront the future responsibly and aggressively. Most of us did not endure the Great Depression nor any of our country's most demanding tests. However, we face a moment of truth that is just as crucial to our nation's future.

It would be tragic if we who have been asked to do so little fail even this test.

Terror apologist woos Denver GOP

A one-issue agitator preoccupied with demonizing Israel and making excuses for Hamas is odd candidate material for Denver Republicans in the race to succeed Andrew Romanoff, writes Joshua Sharf at PoliticsWest.com. I agree with Sharf's dim view of the extremist Rima Barakat Sinclair, and we at Backbone America will do all we can to prevent her from securing the GOP nomination provisionally bestowed at a March 1 party assembly.

Obama's pastor parrots Ward Churchill

It's too late for Barack Obama to distance himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor of 20 years, now that Wright's pattern of radicalism and rage from the pulpit has finally gained mainstream media attention. Politically, the damage is done for Barack, no matter what he says or does at this late hour. The only remaining questions are how aggressively Clinton and her allies will use the (literally) damning quotes against Obama, and -- if he still manages to get the nomination -- how aggressively McCain and his allies will use them in the fall. As more and more of the Wright stuff comes to light, one striking thing is how closely the pastor's blame-America rhetoric after 9/11 paralleled that of disgraced University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill. Remember that on September 12, 2001, Churchill published a scathing essay sympathizing with the World Trade Center attackers, entitled "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens." He started by citing Malcolm X's comment that President Kennedy's assassination was just a matter of chickens coming home to roost, and then said jauntily that "a few more chickens... came home to roost in a very big way" when the Twin Towers and Pentagon were attacked.

The Associated Press, coming very late to the current controversy over Jeremiah Wright, finally got around to quoting him this weekend (see Rocky Mountain News, March 15) as having said in a sermon on the Sunday after 9/11: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

It matters not whether Wright's echo of Churchill was witting or unwitting. Subconsciously at least, the two were both using the Malcolm X talking points in a defiant fashion directly contrary to mainstream American opinion and feeling at a time of national crisis.

Does the Democratic Party really want its 2008 nominee lugging the heavy, hateful baggage of Malcolm X, Ward Churchill, and Jeremiah Wright? And if Dems decide that's okay, how will voters in the home of the brave feel about entrusting the presidency to a man who keeps such disreputable intellectual company?

Note: Ronald Kessler in yesterday's Wall Street Journal had more on Obama and the minister, none of it pretty.