The irony is delicious. Who is victimized by a charge of racism? A black woman. Shirley Sherrod gets fired from her federal job in Georgia by the Obama administration because a white man accused her of racism.
Of course, Andrew Breitbart's sleight of hand is inexcusable. He has taken out of context her speech wherein the Georgia USDA employee tells how she overcame her own racism to look at the person and his plight, not the color of his skin. [Access videos of the entire Shirley Sherrod speech.]
What Breitbart did is to put the shoe on the other foot, to shoot first and watch everyone scatter for cover. How many whites have, for instance, The Capital Times accused of racism to make its target look like deer caught in the headlights?
Just yesterday, CT editor emeritus Dave Zweifel insinuated that State Rep. Nass was a racist for challenging the non-competitive hiring of Michael Morgan to a UW system vice presidency.
"Because Michael Morgan happens to be a black man, Reilly won't be getting any embarrassing F's from groups that promote diversity."
Richard Ford, a law professor at Stanford and author of "The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse," had this to say:
"What's striking to me about this Department of Agriculture fracas is that everyone was so quick to jump to conclusions: Someone reports a few ambiguous comments out of context and, before checking with the woman or getting the whole story, concludes: 'She's a racist!'"
"This is the way race plays out all too often these days - as soon as the accusation of racism is made, good will, the benefit of the doubt, presumption of innocence all go out the window. It's seen as a virtue to jump to the least charitable conclusion when the issue is race - those who reserve judgment are accused of naivete or complicity," he said. [Politico: So much for that conversation about race.]
Two racist fallacies
Madison radio ranter Sly (that case of arrested development) got his thingie caught in a wringer when he labeled Condoleeza Rice an Aunt Jemima for the sin of being a black Republican.
That is the kind of mindless group think that the Klan once engaged in -- to limit a person's options based on epidermis.
Politically correct liberals define as racist anyone who opposes their liberal agenda. It's how Brenda Konkel could label the only minority member of the 20-member Madison Common Council a racist.
In explaining why he opposed ObamaCare, Texas U.S. Senate candidate Michael Williams, a Republican who happens to be black, spanked Little Jimmy Carter last year when he claimed opposition to Obama was based on race:
"Stigmatizing honest opposition as 'racist' appears to be a way of not answering legitimate questions about policy reform."
Then there is the idiocy of Peter Rickman, who asserts that it is just flat-out impossible for a black person to be racist. Flies against nature. Can't be done.
Rickman responded to my previous blog: "It's hard to be anything-ist (e.g. racist, sexist, classist) when you don't have any privilege to lord over anyone. So it's a little tough for, say, the NAACP or any black person to be racist towards white folks."
Huh? What "privilege" does David Blaska have "to lord over anyone?"
Do you mean a black employer cannot possibly discriminate against a white job applicant? A black bartender could legally refuse to serve a white patron for no other reason than race? Al Sharpton is not a race hustler?
Black* with an asterisk?
That is what liberal blogger "Bert", blogging at Folkbum (operated by Jay Bullock) does when he declares that James T. Harris is a "phony black."
Harris is a black with an asterisk. Like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Harris reaps personal benefits from his black status for himself by perpetrating the structural disadvantages for fellow blacks. This gets James T. paid and publicized because it is soothing to many whites to hear blacks deny those structural problems are real, or to attack those black leaders who are trying to fix them.
Harris also sounds like a phony black, trying a little too hard to speak the way suburbanites think blacks should sound, as in the quotation above when he throws out "that's just the way I roll" or "my brother" to a fellow black.
Harris, at his website, The National Conversation (Raw), neatly responds:
Why? Is it because intellectual diversity is a scary thing? Is it because I actually think for myself and question the direction that this "community" is going?
... Jay, is it the prerogative of white men to assign value judgments in terms of whether minority men meet your standard of authenticity? That's a lot of power you have, Exalted Leader. Do I get to put an asterisk next to your level of "whiteness," Wizard Bullock?
... Dear LORD! Is it 1950? Are we in Mississippi? Did I somehow get abducted from my home in Sherman Park's Uptown Crossing, a predominantly "black" neighborhood, by the way… where I reside with my gorgeous, smoking hot "black" wife and my three brilliant and beautiful "black" children (though the Wizard might denounce the above as my phony black wife, phony black kids and phony neighborhood… he of infinite, all-knowing phony black wisdom)?
Seriously, my patience for this ridiculous liberal race dance has now run out. I'm black and conservative among many other things…
Get over it.
Black conservatives
This web site appeals to Black conservatives.
Project 21 is an initiative of The National Center for Public Policy Research to promote the views of African-Americans whose entrepreneurial spirit, dedication to family and commitment to individual responsibility has not traditionally been echoed by the nation's civil rights establishment.
The Black Conservative Coalition seeks to rival the NAACP.
The National Black Republican Association website carries a photograph of "corrupt black Democrats in Congress."
Times change. Even Eldridge Cleaver is a Republican now. A law-abiding Republican.
Now here is the Blaska Platform: in the very next U.S. Census, abolish all those check boxes on race. After all, what is the point?