For today, let’s confront the non-controversial topic of race relations.
It’s hard to watch anything on TV these days without noticing how America has been and is being divided by race, mostly due to one-half of the political spectrum and its representatives seemingly unable or unwilling to part with the scorched earth strategy of divide and conquer. Donald Trump is often heard uttering “Russia, Russia, Russia” to describe the Democrats’ incessant fixation on Vladimir Putin in his first term, but for the rest of the country, it’s “race, race, race” all the time.
This race obsession is not exactly breaking news, but Democrats go out of their way to make it that way. How many times were Americans bombarded by the concept of a “First Black President” during the 2008 campaign? Up until then I had always surmised that the first woman president and first minority president would be Republicans because conservatives don’t often list gender and race as among their prerequisites for being qualified to hold office. If there were a black man who spoke and believed like Ronald Reagan did, there would’ve been a black chief executive long before the community organizer from Chicago took the title.
The jury’s still out on who the first woman president will be, but it hopefully won’t be one who uses gender as her main selling point like Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Remember how ol’ Crooked Hill was asked during a debate to delineate how she was different from Obama? She answered something like, “Well, isn’t it obvious? It’s because I’m a woman!”
As far as the prospects for current vice president Kamala Harris assuming the mantle of first half-black and presumably 100 percent female commander in chief, we can only hope that day never comes to pass. How else would senile Joe have been able to withstand the numerous calls for him to resign and step aside? It’s because Kamala would arguably be worse than he is.
Nevertheless, the back-and-forth over skin surface characteristics and to a lesser degree, national origin, will continue until the two sides come to an understanding about principles, history, culture and the proper role of a politician’s personal background on his or her leadership bona fides.
For what it’s worth, South Carolina Republican senator Tim Scott, who happens to have dark skin, says today’s liberals don’t understand African-Americans. In a piece titled, “What the Left gets wrong about 'the black experience'”, Scott wrote at The Washington Examiner:
“Today, we live in a world that thrives on creating narratives of division. But my childhood and my life have not been defined by my blackness. The vast majority of my life has been defined by family, friends, and mentors who loved me. The majority of my life has been defined by my acceptance of the love of Jesus and the way I choose to view the world — namely, through the twin lenses of hope and redemption.
“There has been monumental change in our country over the past 50 years in regard to how we see race. Rather than ignore or play down our differences, we have learned to celebrate them. Yet I tell the stories because we must understand not just our collective story but also our individual journeys if we are to move forward together.
“As a nation, we are fighting for our identity. There is no law that will change the hearts of humankind. There is no bill or policy powerful enough to stop racism. So what are we to do? What can bring change? What can we look to that can bring the transformation we need? I’ll tell you. There is hope. There is love. There is redemption.”
Scott began his column by relaying personal anecdotes of his experiences being singled out by police and store personnel because of his race. He writes that these incidents motivated him to make change in poor communities and to help people get out of poverty, just as he did. Scott also indicated that the left sets him apart for special hatred due to his skin color, simply because his political beliefs don’t align with theirs.
Justice Clarence Thomas has endured perhaps the most blatant and heinous racist attacks of anyone in this nation, all because his judicial philosophy doesn’t coincide with Al Sharpton’s and Barack Obama’s. No one should have to withstand such disparate treatment. It’s shameful.
To claim there’s a difference in perceptions between the races is an understatement. In the 2021 movie “King Richard”, for example, there are several scenes where the film’s makers intentionally inserted race into the otherwise heroic and inspiring story of Richard Williams, who molded his daughters Venus and Serena into tennis champions despite seemingly insurmountable cultural barriers.
At the outset, I concede that I’m not black and I grew up in an upper middle class, mostly white neighborhood thanks to the unflinching hard work of my parents and the values they learned from their humble working-class families and midwestern roots. My father is the son of a tradesman who never graduated high school. Neither did my mother’s dad, who took his lessons garnered through working in a depression era butcher shop and a gas station and transformed them into a thriving small business from which he provided a fairly comfortable lifestyle for my mom and her siblings in a small town.
My father was the first in his family to graduate from college, and I believe my mother was also the first in her family to do so. My dad worked his way through school in engineering, but having toiled alongside his carpenter father during his formative years, he learned just about everything there was to know about building houses, etc. Dad also acquired architectural and drafting skills, which he used to design and build the house that I grew up in.
Was it really so different for the Williams family, despite their color differences?
“King Richard” features actor Will Smith (of the infamous Chris Rock “slap” fame) playing Richard Williams, and the script basically tells the tale from the father’s perspective. As many sports fans are probably aware, tennis legends Venus and Serena spent their early years in Compton, California, which is more noted for gang violence and the shooting-gallery like nature of America’s Democrat run inner cities than it is for offering an American dream-type launching pad.
In the movie, Richard Williams relentlessly drives his daughters to success through what most would agree are traditional American values – including religion. Richard insisted that all of his daughters (of which there were five) earn top grades in school and be well-rounded as individuals, not just great athletes. The film additionally depicts several run-ins between Williams and the criminal element in his neighborhood, but also reveals his disdain for the police.
One brief scene included Williams and his wife viewing the culture-changing Rodney King beating video on the news, whereby Richard remarked, “at least they got this one on tape.” The story’s narrative makes it clear that the police were viewed by the residents of south-central Los Angeles as almost as big of a problem as the gang members who nearly killed Richard one evening for daring to be out hitting tennis balls at night. As one would expect in Joe Biden’s America, there were numerous references to race and white prejudice despite the fact that the girls were guided at a young age by white coaches who volunteered to teach the promising youths for free. Their first coach was subsequently fired by Richard, so the man basically didn’t get anything in return for what must have been a major commitment of time and resources.
One could debate for hours whether the overarching race themes in “King Richard” were really necessary, but if the movie accurately reflects the attitudes towards race in this country today, there’s no way that the left’s major push for Critical Race Theory, identity politics, adopting the 1619 Project, inclusion based on surface characteristics or the greater insistence on “equity” for gender deviants and “alternative” sexual orientations will ever succeed.
Getting to the nitty gritty below the “woke” contemporary bull crap, the Williams sisters thrived because they had amazingly supportive married parents living in a two-parent home – something that used to be regarded as essential for raising children. Why aren’t America’s African-American Democrat leaders touting this “traditional” model rather than demanding that abortion remain legal and that black students always start one step behind because of their skin color and centuries of racism?
Didn’t the Williams girls ultimately win because they were in a country that provided the intellectual foundation for such stellar individual achievement, even if they started out in a crime infested poor neighborhood like Compton?
And if privileged whites are so bent on keeping black folks in their place, why would great tennis coaches ever agree to help black kids achieve anything – and not get paid for it?
Why isn’t someone like Senator Tim Scott held up as not only as a case of a poor kid emerging from the ghetto to serve at the highest levels of government, but also as a leader whose own example paves the proverbial road out of neediness and destitution?
Common sense suggests the Democrats won’t get away with their constant bludgeoning of Americans with race themes. There’s already plenty of evidence that Hispanics are abandoning the Democrat party in droves, and it’s not just because they don’t like senile Joe Biden. The Democrats’ nonsensical championing of gender (or transgender) and non-traditional sexuality was bound to generate a backlash.
We’re starting to see it now. Here’s thinking it’s only a matter of time before the culture winds blow in the other direction and Democrats are tossed out on their haunches with only themselves to blame. Will they succeed in destroying the country first? The left’s all-race-all-the-time secular segregation crusade must end.
Joe Biden economy
inflation
Biden cognitive decline
gas prices,
Nancy Pelosi
Biden senile
January 6 Committee
Liz Cheney
Build Back Better
Joe Manchin
RINOs
Marjorie Taylor Green
Kevin McCarthy
Mitch McConnell
2022 elections
Donald Trump
2024 presidential election