 | Edwards Stumps in Chicago | |
| In Today's Video Vault | |
| Grassley Swings at (and Misses) Obama | |
| Richardson's Interview | |
| This Just In.... |
| In Defense Of Incrementalism | |
| The War Comes Home | |
| Roe, Not Giuliani, Is The Real Abortion Muddle | |
| Rudy's Party Or Reagan's? | |
| Blair's Influence To Outlast His Iraq Stand |
| Another White Man Bites the Dust | |
| Taking a Bat to Prejudice | |
| Carl Levin, Lindsey Graham, Al Sharpton, Roundtable | |
| Incendiary Talk Radio | |
| A Liberal Conflagration Over Imus |
|
December 02, 2006
More Harrumphing From Jesse Jackson
By Dennis ByrneThe opportunistic Rev. Jesse Jackson is at it again, using comedian Michael Richard's use of the "n-word" to flog white Americans for a supposed streak of racism that we stubbornly refuse to recognize or let go of.
Speaking in Little Rock on Thursday, Jackson said Richard's outburst directed at comedy club hecklers was not an aberration, but symptomatic of a deep racism throughout the land, of an "anti-black mania," as he put it. "Don't just stop with the comedian," he said, pointing to other incidents that he would have us believe indict the entire country.
Aw jeez, not again.
Jackson's accusation would be as wrong as my saying that his exploitation of Richard's meltdown is symptomatic of a black race that won't let it die. It, being the need to relive slavery, Jim Crow and ever injustice inflicted on them until I don't know when, to forever play the victim card.
Jackson's preachments are symptomatic of nothing other than his own bigotry, which he rolls out whenever it suits his self-aggrandizing purposes. In trying to turn the actions of a few individuals into sweeping generalizations about an entire group, class or nation of people, Jackson commits a fundamental logical error: using anecdotal evidence to prove a universal statement.
It would be as if I claimed that blacks are athletic because I know a few blacks who are. Logicians warn that such abuse of anecdotal evidence is more than useless; it is misleading. But, for Jackson, it's good rhetoric because it gets him face time and ink from media that rush to sit at the oracle's feet.
Jackson, of course, portrays himself as courageous for speaking out against a "racist" society, willing to take the blows for saying what the rest of us supposedly don't want to hear. Sadly, he fails to comprehend that so many of us don't want to hear his disquisitions, not because we're wounded by his "truth," but because what he says is vile and slanderous.
Jackson gets reinforcement in this from a brigade of like-minded activists and commentators who tediously repeat this calumny, suggesting that, among other things, we haven't moved forward much from the days of the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision, in which the runaway slave was ordered returned to the slave owner.
In truth, America does have a ways to go before achieving full racial equality and understanding, but the way to do it is not to issue exaggerated accusations of racism to the point of absurdity. Such accusations disregard the public opinion survey evidence that racial attitudes indeed are improving.
It is especially counterproductive when the accuser ignores the mote in his own eye. Such as the time it took Jackson to acknowledge the errors of his reference to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymie-town." Or when use of the "n-word" in white society long ago because unacceptable, but continues to be the insult of choice among rappers and black comics. Or when influential blacks such as Jackson ignore the insults hurled at whites, such as "white bread," white m..... f....... In effect, Jackson, for his own purposes, defies his own sound bites, among them, "we need to be building bridges, not walls."
With this, I've learned from experience that I'll be accused of racism. Any denials on my part will be regarded as lies, because, I and so many other whites (Richards is exhibit A) supposedly harbor racist sentiments deep within. It's imbedded so deep in our psyches, that we can't even see it, exposing itself only in rare tantrums, such as the one thrown by Richards. This is a failsafe argument, because there's no way to counter charges that you're racist deep down. The more you deny it, the more evidence you provide that you are, indeed, racist.
Perhaps Jackson does know me (and the rest of white America) better than I do, so I took something called the Implicit Association Test [https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/], a sociological tool designed to check the measure of your unconscious racial preferences. The result will surprise, perhaps horrify, some of my regular readers: "Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for African American compared to European American." Guess I harbor unconscious sentiments against European Americans. Then again, the testers caution against taking the results too seriously.
Richards is showing every sign of wanting to purge himself of the hidden racism that he has embraced. Without fear of appearing to grovel, Richards has sought forgiveness from, well, everyone. As of this writing, he was hoping to meet the men he insulted in the presence of a retired judge who would "facilitate" a resolution, according to one of the men's attorney, Gloria Allred. (Allred is no slouch herself at self-promotion; her website describes her as a "fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and winner-Gloria Allred is all of these things and more." For sure.) As usual, the purpose of the meeting is the holy grail of a sensitive society: "to begin the necessary process of healing and closure."
Would that Jackson set himself on the same path of healing and closure.
| Sponsored Links |