Why You'll Never Impress Me with Stories of Conservative Racism

---

I use the term "libtard" a number of times in this post. If you are one of my liberal friends, rest assured that you are not a libtard. There is a difference between a liberal and a libtard. I have liberal friends; I have yet to acquire any libtard friends. My liberal friends, this post is not about you.

---

I got to thinking about this subject this afternoon, and unfortunately wound up with too many good ideas (and titles! I will be writing another post, to be titled, "Curse of the Libtard" shortly) to work into one post, especially one (hopefully) short enough to be suited to the short attention spans of the few liberals that might read it.

I'll try to be brief:

1) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because there are too many conservatives. That is, there are millions of people who claim to be conservative in this country alone, and you don't have to have more than two brain cells to rub together (Unless you're a libtard. You might need a few more, yours being of low quality.) to figure out that in any group of that size, of course there are going to be some who hold opinions that are, shall we say, less than optimal. Just because, in a nation that probably has a minimum of thirty or forty million self-identified conservatives, you can find a few--or thirty, or forty, or even thousands, that have used the word "nigger," it doesn't logically follow that conservatives are racists.

Again, slowly, for the drive-by libtard reader: you may prove that there are racist conservatives, but that does not prove that conservatives are racists, just as you may prove that there are brown dogs, but that does not prove that dogs are brown.

2) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because, dear libtard reader, you've too often proven to me that you do not actually know what racism is. You continually confuse racism with a host of other things, in such a way that it ultimately becomes clear that to a libtard, "racist" essentially equates to "not liberal." Honestly: I have seen libtards refer to opposition to social programs as "racist," for no better reason than that the beneficiaries of some of those programs are disproportionately black.

Why should I be impressed with your stories of conservative racism when you've spent so much time showing me that you have, at best, a tenuous grasp of what racism is?

3) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because, dear libtard reader, you've too often proven to me that you don't actually have a clue what conservatism is. Time and again, I have watched you confuse the politics of various statist regimes with conservative thinking, completely oblivious to the glaring contradictions between the two.

Libtards almost never have any clue what the intellectual heritage of conservatism is. Talk to them of Russell Kirk, and they will look at you as though you've a horn growing out of your forehead. And you might as well mention the satellites of Jupiter as bring up Edmund Burke. They have no idea, as a rule, who he was or what he said.

Why should I be impressed with your stories of conservative racism when you've spent so much time showing me that you have, at best, a murky grasp of what conservatism is?

4) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because racism is no part of conservative thinking. There are, to be sure, streams within conservatism, just as there are streams within liberalism (I would never confuse my liberal friends with libtards. God forbid!). I have written on this before; you can search the blog if you're interested. There are "mainstream" conservatives; Paleocons; Crunchy Cons; Neocons; "Social" (primarily Christian) conservatives, and so forth. Not one of these groups will tell you that some races are, by nature, inferior to certain other races (that is the definition of racism, if you were wondering). To be sure, you may find a few (darn few, in my experience) individuals within these groups that have racist ideas, but...see point one.

5) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because you've too often proven that you're completely blind to the racism, bigotry, and hatred within your own libtard ranks (not to mention the other "isms" present there). I saw and heard the way you talked about, and drew cartoons about, Condi Rice. I've read what libtards have to say about Michelle Malkin. I remember the libtard that said she hoped Clarence Thomas died, like so many black men, of heart disease. It is despicable. But you libtards turn a blind eye to it because, in the end, to you, the charge of "racism" is just a tool with which you can assault your political enemies, not something over which you have genuine concern.

Yes, I just called you libtards "hypocrites." Congratulations on figuring that one out.

6) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because I just know too many conservatives. I referred to this in my last post. Look, libtards and libtardettes, most of the people I know reasonably well are conservatives of one stripe or another. Some are more conservative, some are less, some are conservative on this issue but not on that issue, but I'm really not going too far in saying that most of the people I know reasonably well are conservatives.

I don't know any of them that are racists. Seriously. To tar any of them as "racist," you have to torture the definition of racism (see point 2).

How on earth do you think you're going to persuade me that conservatives are racist when none of the conservatives I know are racists?

7) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because there are too many black (and brown) conservatives. Sadly, it is when you libtards write about them that your own bigotry and vitriol most often boils over. Words fail me when thinking of the venom that's been heaped on Clarence Thomas, on Michelle Malkin, on Condi Rice.

Libtards' thinking just can't quite grasp the significance of people like Clarence Thomas, Michelle Malkin, Condi Rice, Star Parker, La Shawn Barber (whom I follow on Twitter, and who has graciously responded to some of my tweets), Lloyd Marcus, Thomas Sowell, Herman Cain (currently near the top in Republican polling--kind of weird for an allegedly racist party, wouldn't you think?), and...Mike.

"Mike?" you ask? I don't know his last name, but Mike is a black gent, a driver for Triple A, whom I met a couple of years ago. You see, I drive this ratty old Bronco II, which I dearly love and hope to restore someday, and there for a while, a couple of years ago, I was having pretty regular trouble with it. One of the few benefits of my job is that I get Triple A coverage, and the first time I met Mike was when I had to have Triple A come out and pick me up on a back road. While Mike was lowering the platform on his truck, he was playing his radio at full volume because he didn't want to miss a word of what Michael Savage had to say. I guess people had commented on his taste in talk radio before, because he felt obliged to turn to me at one point and tell me, "Not all of us voted for Obama!"

Mike picked up me and my Bronco II a couple of other times over the next several months. He's consistent. He's not fooling. He's a conservative.

Mike and people like him fry libtard minds. The fact that there are black conservatives puts libtards in the position of having either to admit that conservatism doesn't equal being against black people, or of having to accuse people like Mike of being stupid or sellouts. With almost clockwork regularity, libtards choose the second option, apparently clueless as to how bigoted accusing a black man of being a sellout or a fool for disagreeing with them makes them look.

8) You'll never impress me with stories of conservative racism because--and this will no doubt come as a shock to your poor little libtard soul--I actually know, and have known, a lot of black people. Brown people, too.

I swear, libtards often write and speak as though conservatives have never actually met a person of color, like they don't know what they're like. It's amazing. You really seem to think you can say almost any stupid thing about black people and conservatives and since, in your libtard minds, no conservatives actually know black people, we'll never be able to call you on it!

I wrote about some of the black people I've known in this post, which I also linked in my last post, but I know perfectly well you libtards didn't read it.

Libtards and libtardettes, in my life, I have been in the Marine Corps Reserve, worked in the restaurant business for fourteen years, worked in call centers, and, for most of the last eight years, worked in a field that gives me direct and almost-daily contact with heavy consumers of social services. I know, and have known, lots and lots of blacks and hispanics. And having known so many, let me assure you, dear libtard reader, I have a much better idea how they behave and what they say than you might think!

It is almost comical to watch or read libtards act as though certain words were proof-positive of racism. Almost comical, that is, to anyone who actually knows a lot of black people.

One time, I brought a short stick with which I happened to be working to our summer training in the Mojave Desert. My A-gunner--assistant gunner--saw it, asked what it was, and upon being told that it was a martial arts weapon, said, "It sure looks like a nigger-knocker to me." He was, of course, a "dark green" Marine, that is to say, for those of you who haven't been in the Corps, he was black.

How seriously do you expect me to take your charges of racism when Lilly, one of the Wal-Mart employees I have gotten to know a bit over my years of shopping there, was obviously upset with someone on the phone, and, when asked what she was upset about, replied, in frustration and almost at the top of her lungs, "BLACK PEOPLE!!"? Racism? I have no doubt that if she was white, you libtards would charge her with it. But Lilly is black.

One of my best friends in this world is a 74-year-old black lady named Rose. When she tells me how she cautioned a grand-daughter to take her car to a real mechanic, not to get it "nigger-rigged," when she tells me how she told an errant male relative to "get his black *** over here," just how seriously do you expect me to take you when you tell stories about how some conservative or other used the word "nigger," and how that proves that conservatives are racists?

Haven't you libtards ever been around a group of black folks and heard one say to another, "Nigga, please"?

I'm not saying that it's a good idea to use the word "nigger," but honestly, has it never occurred to you libtards that if black people routinely use the word, saying "nigger" doesn't automatically mean you're against all black people? Are you really that stupid?

As I wrote in this post, I've had black folks tell me--quietly, as though they were afraid someone might overhear--that the behavior of some black folks made them ashamed to be black, or that they didn't like black people. Do you seriously expect me to consider the possibility that those black people thought that black people are, by nature, inferior? If not, why on earth would you expect me to believe that conservatives who say that black culture is deteriorating are racists?

Libtards, I know you'll never quit accusing conservatives and Republicans of institutional racism. If you admit that conservative opposition to your ideas has little to do with race and much to do with the feckless and often murderous record of your ideas, you are, conversationally and publicly speaking, cooked. Accusing conservatives of racism is just one of the ways you have of diverting attention from your failed ideology, so you won't ever give it up.

But I, and others like me, won't ever fall for it.

The Mark of the Idiot

Been a while since I've posted. Been busy, still am, so I'll keep this short and sweet:

You know, don't you, that I identify myself as a Tea Partier? Well, if you didn't, you know now.

Probably most of the people I know would describe themselves as Tea Partiers, or at least not unfriendly to the Tea Party. It's probably fair to say that most of the people I know would describe themselves as conservative, even the few that don't identify themselves as Tea Partiers.

I do know some liberals, and some of them I like and get on quite well with. Those are not the people I'm writing about today.

The people I'm writing about today are the fatuous twits who simply cannot see a Tea Partier--or a conservative, for that matter--without seeing a racist.

Friends, I know not one--not ONE--Tea Partier who could fairly be described as a racist. I do know Tea Partiers who oppose racial set-asides, who oppose welfare programs that mostly benefit minorities, who think that Black American culture is suffering badly, and so forth, but it requires an extraordinary degree of ignorance or stupidity to describe those as racist positions. Even to suggest that any one of them is racist shows blissful ignorance of the definition of the word.

It floors me that a political movement that currently seems to be enamored of, for crying out loud, Herman Cain, an obviously black man, can be tarred as "racist," but I have seen the attempt made. It floors me that a political movement that practically worships Col. Allen West, another obviously black man, can be tarred as "racist," but I have seen it done. It floors me that a political movement that has, for one of its most lively writers, Lloyd Marcus, another obviously black man, can be tarred as "racist," but I have seen it done, even by people who know that the Tea Party has blacks and other minorities in it. They do it, basically, by asserting that our minority members candidates aren't real minorities, or are sellouts, or stupid.

Mighty **** broad-minded of you, pally...

The situation has gotten so bad that I cannot look at someone calling Tea Partiers "racist" and fail to think of him as a complete idiot. Calling Tea Partiers "racist" has become a badge, a mark--the Mark of the Idiot.

For more of my thoughts on racism, go here.

---

And, of course, they're still at it, trying to tar the whole barrel with a few bad apples, in spite of headlines like this one. As God is my witness, one of the things I'm hoping for most is the sight of libtards trying to tell me that their opposition to Herman Cain's presidential policies isn't racist but that my opposition to Barack Obama's was racist.

---

Republicans, Democrats, and Raaaaaaaaaaacism

Every so often I have a series of encounters that forces me to take a step back for a moment, shake my head, and say, "MOTW, are you hearing what you think you're hearing? 'Cause it sure sounds crazy."

Of course, I am usually hearing exactly what I think I'm hearing, and if it's not crazy, it's borderline crazy.

From places here and there in the blogosphere and MSM, for example, I've been hearing the charge that Republicans are going to use, if I recall one writer's term correctly, "dogwhistle racism" against President Obama in 2012--that is, the charge is that Republicans are racist, oppose Barack Obama because of his race, and expect to win by luring knuckle-dragging, racist, redneck Republicans to the polls.

It's borderline crazy because it so neatly inverts the truth, and it's aggravating because some people actually fall for it.

I've written about racism before, and I recommend you go read that post before going on with this one. When you're back, I'll lightly sketch in the real history of Republicans, Democrats, and racism for you. I'm not going to bother to link to sources; I just flat don't want to take the time. But you can easily verify what I say here with a little digging, if you're willing to do it. If you're not willing to do it...

Oh, well.

---

Have you heard of Andrew Jackson? Oh, I know you've seen his face; it's on our money. But did you know he was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans? Did you know he was the only president every to see our national debt paid off? Did you know that he was also, in the words of a Democrat whose opinion I respect a lot, "a bigoted son of a -----?" That he oversaw the forced removal of the Cherokee and certain other tribes to Oklahoma? That he was the first Democrat president, and that one of the priorities of his Democratic Party was to preserve slavery in the South?

That's right: it wasn't the Republican Party that was born to champion slavery; that distinction belongs to the Democrats. The Republican Party was formed in large part to oppose slavery.

Think what you like of the issues involved in the Civil War. I won't pretend that the whole conflict can be reduced to slavery vs. anti-slavery. But I will tell you, and it is the truth, that during the Civil War and for decades and decades afterward, it was Republicans that championed liberty for blacks and Democrats that hindered it. I am speaking in broad terms, of course, and you can probably find exceptions on both sides, but in general, that is the truth of the matter.

The Ku Klux Klan, in its various incarnations? Democrats.

Lynchings? Democrats.

Cross-burnings? Democrats.

Suppression of the black vote? Democrats.

Discrimination against black workers? Democrats.

"Bull" Conner? Democrat.

Orval Faubus? Democrat

Virulent racist Woodrow Wilson? Democrat

Virulent racist Lyndon Johnson? Democrat

Robert "Sheets" Byrd, former Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan? Democrat

For decades, the Democratic Party was the national bastion of American racism.

For decades, blacks voted--when they could vote, that is--Republican.

Martin Luther King? Republican. Go ahead, call him a racist. I dare you.

You don't really think that Democrats genuinely morphed from the racists' party to the champions of black equality in the few short years between Orval Faubus's Little Rock escapades to the Great Society, do you? You're not really that naive, are you?

Of course, Democrats didn't do any such thing. In the sixties, thanks largely to Republican efforts to secure equal access to the ballot box for black Americans, blacks became a voting bloc worth courting. And the Democrats courted them! In one of the most brazen, cynical turnarounds in political history, the Democrats re-branded themselves as the party of black rights, instituting entitlement programs largely aimed at buying and locking up the black vote, and painting Republican opposition to those programs, programs that have wrecked the black family, as racist. Amazingly, they have successfully painted Republican opposition to racial set-asides, racial quotas, as racist! They have painted anyone with the nerve to say that popular black culture is disintegrating and dragging blacks down as racist.

Democrats have rewritten history in the minds of most Americans. In a twisted sort of way, I have to salute them. It is one of the most amazing feats of re-branding, of successfully executing the "big lie" technique, in history. And they have done it all, successfully, for the sake of securing the votes of black voters, for the sake of raw, naked political power.

There are, of course, Republicans that Democrats have a hard time successfully tarring as racists: black Republicans like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Star Parker, La Shawn Barber, Walter Williams, Condoleeza Rice, and the Filipina-by-heritage Michelle Malkin get a different treatment. They are not called racists; they are said to be sellouts, "Toms," and self-haters.

Some of the most blatantly racist political cartoons I've ever seen were directed at Condi Rice. You've probably forgotten.

I ain't never gonna forget.

The truth of the matter is that there is very little, if any, racism in the Republican Party. It is such a rarity that Democrats are darn hard pressed to come up with actual examples and are forever reduced to calling things racist when they aren't--things like welfare reform, or opposition to racial quotas. Or they'll out and out lie about someone being called racist names or spat on. Or they'll decide that a Republican's using "code words" to communicate with racists, or they'll selectively edit tapes to make someone appear to have said something racist when he hasn't. The truth of the matter is that the Democratic Party long ago decided that racial division was politically useful, and they've falsely tarred Republicans as racists ever since.

Pat Buchanan on Obama and the White Voter

---

I took my notes from Mr. Buchanan's column several days ago and promptly forgot all about them.

---

The White House fears it is losing white America because of a false perception that it harbors a bias against white America.

{snip]

Whence comes that perception? Several incidents.

First was the startling accusation by Attorney General Eric Holder, days after Barack Obama was inaugurated in a gusher of good feeling, that we are all "a nation of cowards" when it comes to facing issues of race. A real icebreaker for a national conversation.

Second was the instantaneous verdict of the president, when asked about the arrest of Harvard's Henry Louis Gates by Cambridge cop Sgt. James Crowley. With no knowledge of what happened, Obama blurted out that the cops had "acted stupidly."

[snip]

A third was the revelation that Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the "wise Latina" herself, had gone to extremes to see that the case of Frank Ricci and the New Haven, Conn., firefighters never got to the Supreme Court. Ricci and co-defendants had been denied promotions they had won in competitive exams solely because they were white and no black firemen had done as well.

The fourth was the Justice Department's dropping of charges against members of the New Black Panther Party, whose intimidation of voters in Philadelphia had been captured on tape.

When a department official resigned in protest and went to the Civil Rights Commission to accuse officials at Justice of ordering staff attorneys not to pursue such cases, that explosive charge, too, was ignored by Justice.

Came then the NAACP smear that the tea party was harboring racists, which Joe Biden explicitly rejected on national television on Sunday, before the Monday firestorm over Sherrod.

Now, whatever one's views on each of these episodes in which race played a role, white Americans are being forced to address them.

[snip]

Where the erosion is taking place is in white America, among working- and middle-class folks who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries but took a chance with Obama in the fall. Now, every time some new incident erupts, these folks are being tarred.

Opposition to affirmative action is racist. Supporting the tea party gives aid and comfort to racists. Opposing health care puts you in league with folks who used racial slurs on Rep. John Lewis. To raise the issue of the New Black Panther Party is to play the race card.

One understand the bitterness of tea party folks who carry signs that read: "What difference does it make what this placard says. You'll call it racist anyway."

Dan Phillips Shoots, Dan Phillips Scores...

He noteth:

I'll be completely candid. I don't know one conservative, private or public, who wouldn't weep for joy (virtually or actually) to see "minorities" pouring into the conservative movement and filling up positions of leadership.

Oh, he said a lot more than that, of course, and I recommend you go read it. But this really hit me.

You get aggravated after a while, you know. You get aggravated because your positions are continually being attacked as raaaaaaacist, and you, by extension, are being attacked as raaaaaaaacist, and you know, and everybody who knows you even tolerably well knows, that there's not a raaaaaaaacist bone in your body. But say that affirmative action produces negative results, say that illegal immigration is a bad thing, say that welfare programs are a classic moral hazard, and an inevitable part of your opponents' response is, "You're a racist." It's aggravating because it's so obviously an attempt to discredit you with an unwarranted smear.

Feh. The reality is that if I saw the conservative wing of the Republican Party filling up with Black folks and Hispanics, I'd be so tickled I'd be downright impossible to live with. Come to think of it, the Marine Corps was just shot through with Hispanics, and man for man, I'm dead certain it's the most conservative branch of the military. And you can bet your bippy that was okay with me.

And becoming conservative wouldn't mean that they were being race traitors, either.

For more of my thoughts on raaaaaaacism, click here.

Pat and Bay Buchanan on Arizona and Illegal Immigration

Pat and Bay, are, I believe, brother and sister. They each had a column the other day on the same subject. Here are some of the choice bits. From Pat:

With the support of 70 percent of its citizens, Arizona has ordered sheriffs and police to secure the border and remove illegal aliens, half a million of whom now reside there.

Arizona acted because the U.S. government has abdicated its constitutional duty to protect the states from invasion and refuses to enforce America's immigration laws.

[snip]

What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed?

He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty.

He has denounced Arizona as "misguided." He has called on the Justice Department to ensure that Arizona's sheriffs and police do not violate anyone's civil rights. But he has said nothing about the rights of the people of Arizona who must deal with the costs of having hundreds of thousands of lawbreakers in their midst.

How's that for Andrew Jackson-style leadership?

Obama has done everything but his duty to enforce the law.

[snip]

The tasks that Arizonans are themselves undertaking are ones that belong by right, the Constitution and federal law to the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security.

Arizona has been compelled to assume the feds' role because the feds won't do their job. And for that dereliction of duty the buck stops on the desk of the president of the United States.

[snip]

Last year, while Americans were losing a net of 5 million jobs, the U.S. government -- Bush and Obama both -- issued 1,131,000 green cards to legal immigrants to come and take the jobs that did open up, a flood of immigrants equaled in only four other years in our history.

What are we doing to our own people?

Whose country is this, anyway?

From Bay:

President Obama had the audacity to call Arizona legislators “irresponsible” for passing the law, claiming it will lead to racial profiling. What about the massive invasion along our border that exposes Americans to ever-increasing levels of violence against Americans, including murder and kidnapping? What about their civil rights? Not so much as a footnote for them.

[snip]

A lot of well-meaning Americans who are sympathetic to people who want to come to this country in search for a better life and who follow the rules are tempted to fall for this trap.

What they don’t know, and what open border fanatics try to hide, is that America is letting in more legal immigrants than ever before. Currently one out of every six workers in the country is foreign born.

The Department of Homeland Security recently released its legal immigration figures for Fiscal Year 2009 (October 2008 through September 2009). During this period, over five million people lost their jobs. Amazingly, we increased the number of green cards from 2008 to a staggering level of 1,130,818, over 800,000 of whom can compete against American workers. Outside of the 1986 amnesty, which led to millions of illegal aliens taking green cards, this is the second highest number of green cards we’ve issued since 1914.

Now, I just know there are going to be readers that think I'm raaaaaacist for even bringing this subject up, let alone quoting the Buchanans. Tell you what, before you play that card, consider that my wife is half Mexican, my children (obviously) are a quarter Mexican, that there's Indian blood (Choctaw, to be specific) in my family, that I teach Mexican immigrants, and so forth, and take the time to read my thoughts on racism. Do at least that much, okay?

Klavan on Racism, Courtesy of Cathouse Chat

Kat embedded this video, which I enjoyed considerably, and I follow suit for those of you who don't follow her blog (shame on you!).

I've also appended it to the end of my old post, Thoughts on Racism, which I hope you'll take time to read before deciding that I'm a RAAAAAAAcist.

Thoughts on Racism

---

A long time back now, a blogger with whom I ordinarily have a lot of agreement wrote a post that, to my mind, came very close to flat-out calling someone a racist over remarks that--at the very least--might have been completely innocent in intent.

Racism bothers me. But falsely accusing someone of racism, or accusing them of racism on the slimmest of pretexts, bothers me, too. I thought I'd gather some of my thoughts on the subject, and it's taken me a little while.

First, here is some of the flotsam and jetsam floating around in my mind, to give you some perspective on what follows.

---

Memories and Perspectives

Despite suffering the misfortune of having been born in an Arkansas military hospital, I consider myself a native Oklahoman. Both sides of my family have been here since before the Civil War, more correctly known as "The War of Northern Aggression" (If you ever hear me speak, remember that I come by my accent honestly). Like most folks whose families have been here that long, I have just a little Indian blood. My relatives say I'm part Choctaw; just how much, I don't know. Nobody seems to know. It's probably not much--there's just enough to give my skin an ever-so-slight copper tinge, at least on the parts that have been exposed to the sun. I doubt you'd notice any difference in my skin tone at first glance. Shoot, even I can't tell unless I see paler folks next to me in the mirror--like when I see myself and a couple of others in the wall mirrors of the little dojo I get to practice in occasionally. It's only then that I can tell that my genetic background isn't exclusively Celtic.

Nevertheless, the first time I met my now-deceased father-in-law, he said, within seconds of shaking my hand, "You got some Injun in you, don't ya? Not that there's anything wrong with that."

I never thought anything of it. It would have been ludicrous, given his background, to think that he meant any harm or thought any the less of me. The only reason I remember it at all is that it struck me forcibly how quickly he was able to recognize--somehow--that I had Indians in my ancestry. Nobody else, to my knowledge, has ever picked up on it so quickly.

Yet, I know that there are people who consider it grossly inappropriate to make remarks like that, as though it were somehow offensive to acknowledge that there are identifiable racial characteristics in a person's appearance.

When did we get to the point where even to acknowledge a person's racial background can be considered rude, or even indicative of racism?

*****

After I got out of boot camp and Infantry Training School, my first platoon commander was Warrant Officer Gunn. In the Marines, Warrant Officers are often referred to--often even to their faces--as "Gunner," so he was "Gunner Gunn."

Gunner Gunn was, I think, my favorite of the officers I served under. He was inspiring, had high expectations, was tough, completely fair, and it was clear at all times that his men came first. He was really good, a pleasure to serve under.

He was black. I mention it only because someone occasionally suggests--like a commenter on the blogpost that originally got me thinking about writing this post--that whites sometimes resist putting blacks in leadership positions, or following them once they're there. I don't know about that. The United States Marine Corps was about as color-blind as it is possible for an organization to be, and my experience there makes me automatically question assertions about whites' alleged unwillingness to follow black leaders.

To my mind, it's always about the leader in question.

*****

I was on duty once in one of the fast-food restaurants I spent years in, when a couple of young black ladies came in. One was just fine, just placed her order like anyone else, but the other let rip with a non-stop stream of invective. I got called a "White Mother------" and all kinds of other names, and for some reason, it seemed like my calmness (I refused to get visibly upset) aggravated her all the more.

To this day, I haven't figured out why she did that. I treated her just like every other customer--just like her friend had been treated, in fact.

It didn't escape me that her behavior embarrassed the heck out of my crew. Every single person on duty, except for me, was black. Not one of them was comfortable listening to her tirade.

*****

Another time, in a different location of the same restaurant chain, a black lady with whom I often worked were alone together in the store. I can't remember whether it was before opening, or whether it was just a slow spot in the afternoon, but as we worked, we talked, and at one point, she confided in me--I'm afraid I can't remember what brought the comment on--"MOTW, I don't like most black people. My husband keeps bringing these people home, and--well, I don't like most of them."

The weird part is that she told me this in hushed tones, like she was afraid someone would overhear, even though we were alone in the building. What could she possibly have been afraid of?

*****

Yet another time, in yet a different location of the same restaurant chain (I spent a long time in the fast-food business), I was on duty with another management person, a black lady who was an assistant manager. We always got along well, but I was nevertheless a little taken aback when a black family came in and--in her judgment--behaved abominably. When she had had just about all she could stand, she leaned over and whispered, "MOTW, it's people like that that make me ashamed to be black."

I don't quite get it. White people that behave badly don't make me ashamed to be white.

*****

While I ran a fast-food restaurant on the North side of town, I once employed a real winner: a handsome young black man who was just about to complete the curriculum at Tulsa Welding School. I mean, this kid was just about to finish up everything, every single course the school offered. He wasn't one of those people who take just enough welding instruction to get an entry-level job somewhere (about three to six months, if I'm not mistaken); he'd been at the school for almost two years, as I recall, and when he graduated, he was going to make the big bucks.

To top it off, he was a genuinely nice person with excellent manners and a winning personality. When I'd called his former employers for references, every single one of them said that they'd love to have him back, that he was one of the best employees they'd ever had. I'd hired him even though I knew I wouldn't have him for long.

One night, it wound up that it was just him and me after closing the restaurant, and during the course of closing up, he complained briefly to me that he was a little frustrated because he couldn't find any nice black girls in his age range to date.

It was ironic because in the same store, I also employed two nice young black girls, the daughters of a local small businessman. Their complaint? They said they couldn't find any nice young black men to date.

You couldn't help but wonder, "What the ?????"

*****

In a roundabout way, the preceding section has a bearing on this one. It wasn't that long ago that in visiting a new blog, I followed some links and found myself in a whole 'nother world: the world of black women who have had just about all they can stand of being treated badly by black men. Some of these women refer to black men whom they don't think are ever going to learn to behave any better as DBRBM, or "Damaged Beyond Repair Black Men."

I knew there were problems in the black community, but I had little idea that so many black women were just on the point of giving up.

It's legitimate, isn't it, to ask how this disaster occurred?

*****

Years and years ago, when a teenager, I worked for a while in a shop that rented and sold tools and lawn and garden equipment. Two of the men who worked there made liberal use of the N-word in referring to some customers. This was to my great annoyance, for I have always found that word terribly objectionable.

One day, a black man came in and conducted some business. Apparently, he made quite an impression on one of those two men, for--though I can't remember what prompted the remark--he said to me, "That was not a (N-word). That was a black gentleman."

I didn't quite appreciate the full significance of that remark 'til years later, when I began to understand that what it meant was that to that man, it wasn't about race, it was about behavior and culture. In other words, he didn't necessarily think that black people were inferior (more on that later), but there were certain objectionable behaviors that he had come to associate with black people, and furthermore, he knew enough to know that that behavior was an accident of cultural and social background, not the result of some genetic component.

There are people who would call that man a racist. But by the dictionary definition of the word, he was not.

*****

When I was in boot camp, one of the privates in our platoon was a Cambodian named Ea. He didn't speak very good English, but he was on fire, he wanted so badly to be a Marine. He hated communism and communists--blamed them for all the well-documented evils they'd brought to his homeland--and had hopes of someday getting to fight with the U.S. Marines against communism.

Ea was, without a doubt, funny-looking to the average American. He was little and skinny, with a sallow complexion, and had ears that stuck out from his head, and of course, he had that very limited English and a thick accent that made him almost incomprehensible. If anyone was cut out for the role of "outsider," it was Private Ea, but I recall clearly one day that when discussing Ea's background, the platoon guide, an enormous white man who was a former steelworker (if I recall correctly) and absolutely covered from head to foot with tattoos, said, "None of that matters now. You're an American now."

And you know, he was. He was from across the world, from a completely different culture, a member of a racial minority, but none of that mattered. He had cast his lot and placed his loyalties with the United States, and that was all that mattered to us.

*****

It wasn't that long ago that a Southern Baptist blogger, in an online discussion, made a reference to eating cornbread and buttermilk. The fact that he made that reference when addressing a black man was taken by some as evidence of racism, or at least of unconscious racist attitudes. He denied it; said it was just what he'd happened to have been eating himself when he was at the keyboard.

To this minute, I don't think some people believed him, despite not being able to find anything else hinting of racism in his commentary (at least to my knowledge). They seemed to find it absolutely unbelievable that a white man would actually eat cornbread and buttermilk, despite the repeated assurances of some of us that that particular combination of foodstuffs is actually quite widely consumed in the South by all manner of folks. (You can find more on this in Crescent Dragonwagon's excellent cookbook, The Cornbread Gospels, if you're interested.)

Who was making the racial assumptions? The blogger, or the people who assumed that only black people would eat cornbread and buttermilk? And why?

*****

You know, I honestly think you'd be an idiot to deny that there are race problems in the United States.

I also think you'd be plumb nuts if you thought, in general, that those problems had very much to do with racism.

Why? In part, though I hate to say it, because the overwhelming majority of people that I meet/read/run into/listen to that talk about "racism" have absolutely no idea what the word means. Instead, they have this vague sense that it means that you don't like people who aren't the same color you are.

[Ding!] Sorry. Wrong. Look, it's really simple. Here's the definition of racism. Several dictionary definitions, actually, which I can summarize by telling you that the principle definition of racism is that it is the idea that some races are genetically, or by nature, inferior or prone to some defect in behavior. Associating a set of behaviors with black people, or white people, or people of whatever color is not racism, it's prejudice. A practical bias against some people because of their skin color is bigotry. Not all bigots are racists--people have accused people who don't want to vote for Mitt Romney of anti-Mormon bigotry, for example--but it is rare indeed to find a racist who isn't a bigot.

You can say that black people in general like fruit flavors (and this is perfectly consistent with my experience in running that fast-food restaurant on the North side, by the way), and that isn't racist, it has to do with the culture. You can say that white people, by nature, can't dance, and that is racist. Innocuous, but racist.

What.

Ever.

My experience with race problems in the United States is that they have less to do with racism and more to do culture, economics, and politics.

Black culture in this country has been very nearly destroyed, in part for the purpose of creating a permanent voting bloc. It has gotten so bad that even in the black community, quite a few people have developed a pronounced distaste for the culture around them. But since part of the destruction has included encouraging black people to feel a sense of solidarity with each other (A sense of solidarity that, by and large, in my opinion, does not exist among American whites. White Americans may have a sense of group identity, but it usually has nothing to do with their color. It may revolve around their politics, their religion, their hobbies, or their jobs, but not their race. It doesn't even occur to most of them.), to have a group identity, to voice that distaste is to assume the role of race traitor. This group identity is, it seems to me, what lead the ladies who whispered to me that they were ashamed to be black, or didn't like most black people, to whisper. It is the group identity that encourages some black men to accuse some black women of betrayal, should they dare to date outside their race. It is the group identity that creates an "us against them" mentality that is very effectively manipulated by some people--especially some white people--to marginalize voices with which they disagree.

There seems to be no quicker way to silence a person, or at least to make his actual opinions irrelevant, than to accuse him of racism. Once that word is tossed out there, a person effectively is reduced to perpetually defending himself against the charge, no matter how absurd its basis. It is a devastatingly effective weapon, and has been so widely used that we have gone to absurd lengths to avoid being vulnerable to the charge. I have run across people who will not mention a person's color when describing him ("Have you seen Mr. Jones?" I don't know. What's he look like? "Oh, he's about six feet tall, etc., etc.," But no mention of whether Mr. Jones happens to be black, white, copper, or brown); little kids who have been shushed for noting that, "Mommy,that lady's hair is curly"; people who are afraid to mention certain foods, for cryin' out loud, around black people; etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad absurdum. I have run across people that honestly believe that they can't make it ahead in life, or in the company they work for, because of their skin color. Everyone is against them. Not only are white people against them, black people are against them, because they are too dark or too light or too yellow or too whatever. I have also run across people who--not being stupid--have figured out that the quickest way to get action or attention is to start hollering about someone's alleged racism.

I'm sick of all of it. I'm ready for people to return to a simple concept: giving one another the benefit of the doubt. I'm ready to be able to talk about and with people of other races without having to parse every word, because I know that people aren't going to be looking for hatred and animosity that simply isn't there. I'm ready for people to understand that criticizing their culture isn't the same thing as hating them for their quantity of melanin. I'm ready for people to understand that their color doesn't automatically dictate where their loyalties lie, that we can be white or black or tan or brown and that what matters is not the tone of our skin, but the fact that we're loyal to the same God, the same country, the same American idea.

And most of all, I'm ready for people, especially white people, to quit trying to shut up those with whom they disagree by shouting RAAAAAAAcist! Every time they do it, they make the problem worse.

---

UPDATE:
The inimitable Kat of Cathouse Chat discovered this excellent little commentary from Andrew Klavan. I hope you take the time to watch it.

---