We have endured two years of endless journalistic shouting about Barack Obama, the great racial healer who brought us together, the man who had everyone singing on a sun-drenched hill with a bottle of Coke and a smile. Now that he’s here, what does he have? We have Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, telling us how Americans remain “voluntarily segregated” and that while we have the foolish pride to think of the United States as an ethnic melting pot, we have always been and still are “a nation of cowards.”
Whether you support him politically or not, Obama’s election couldn’t facilitate but make Americans feel more positive about the state of American race relations. ABC News polls have shown that the number of Americans who say racism is a “big problem” has fallen by more than half, from 54 percent in 1996 to 26 percent today. It declined sharply among both blacks and whites. Moreover, 58 percent believed that Obama’s presidency would improve race relations. How is the Obama administration responding? We are a “nation of cowards.”
If anyone was cowardly when it came to sincere conversations about race, it was Obama and his supporters in the media. They were the ones who refused to raise the issues of racial quotas, profiling and illegal immigration, no doubt for fear of upsetting white troglodytes. They were the ones who kept Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in the closet for over a year. They were the ones who were left reeling, claiming that his minister Jeremiah Wright’s insane tirades only made Barack Obama more noble. Obama was the man who declared he could not distance himself from Wright, and he did exactly that a few weeks later when Wright’s fanaticism became obvious to all.
And his administration is now lecturing us about “cowardice”?
Then there were coward journalists writing about the “nation of cowards”. Wait, did I say “covering”? No news on this subject could be found in the purported document, nor in the New York Times, nor in Time magazine, nor on CBS. It’s not like the cowardice line was difficult to find. This was the first sentence of the second paragraph of Holder’s remarks.
Others tiptoed past him. The Washington Post published a low description consisting of 222 words. NBC anchor Brian Williams simply offered one clip, calling it “a very blunt speech.” George Stephanopoulos sat in the ABC’s late-night presenter’s chair and also presented just one segment, describing it as an “emotional analysis of racism.” Nobody had time for outraged critics.
Some print reporters covered the entire story without finding any critics. The Associated Press cable written by Devlin Barrett was 727 words long and included Holder’s spokeswoman, Hillary Shelton of the NAACP, calling the speech “constructively provocative” and an Ohio State professor saying it was “accurate on substance” if it was not. – this can be expressed in the most “political” way possible.
Among the major print media, only the Los Angeles Times managed to find a critic of Holder. After quoting liberal Mary Frances Berry, who called the speech “very brave,” reporter Josh Meyer quoted black Republican Joe Hicks, who put it perfectly: “Here’s the first black attorney general appointed by the first black American president,” he said, “and he is “they hold views that seem almost ultra-left in their approach to race in America – that blacks are victims and whites are intolerant and accept quasi-racist views.”
Holder certainly sounded “ultra-left” when he lectured on the civil rights movement that “most people who are not familiar with history still don’t understand how this movement changed America.” He boasted that other “major social movements” of the 1960s, from feminists to anti-war protesters, had been “liberated” by the spirit of seeking black equality. You have to be a leftist to consider the surrender in Vietnam and legalized abortion as glorious historical monuments.
Some parts were just amusing. Holder bombastically stated, “On Saturdays and Sundays, America in 2009 is in some ways not significantly different from the country that existed some 50 years ago.” Has this man never been to a sporting event on the weekends? He claimed that there is “no meaningful interaction between us” outside of the workplace. Does this man have no idea about the raise in racial intermarriage since 1959?
Eight years ago, the same ardent liberals who claim to love racial healing beat fresh Attorney General John Ashcroft senseless with rhetorical batons as if he were a cruel slave master like Simon Legree. Neither of them has the decency to admit that Ashcroft showed more respect for his opponents and much more love for his country and its people than Eric Holder did.
