February 20, 2009
A Nation of Cowards?
By Matthew May

Of course, Eric Holder is correct.

When it comes to race we Americans are, for the most part, a nation of
cowards. This cowardice was on full display during the most recent
presidential election and continues today.

As they are in so many other areas of life, chief among our American
cowards are the representatives of the national political media.
During the presidential campaign, there was a maniacal effort on the
part of the national media to find whites who would not vote for
Barack Obama, never mind the reasoning for choosing so. Whites who
were not for Mr. Obama were automatically racist in outlook and
action, you see.

No major media network or national newspaper attempted to investigate
the associations of Barack Obama with William Ayres and the Annenberg
Project in Chicago. No major media network or national newspaper
launched an investigation as to the release of Barack Obama's grades
in college, the lack of legal scholarship that somehow landed him as
president of the Harvard Law Review, or any other aspect of his
mysterious academic record. Think back to how resolute and determined
that same media were in smoking out the academic record of George W.
Bush to prove he is a dolt.

What is the difference? It is the difference between the incurious or
deliberate ignoring of the seemingly endless and disturbing
associations and utterances of Barack Obama and the deliberate
attempts at smashing anything and everything associated with Sarah
Palin. Because Palin is white, she was fair game. Because Barack Obama
is sort of black, anything said against him or an honest inquiry into
his past was automatically deemed racist - literally no questions
asked.

While such cowardice is to be expected from the national media, there
is, however, an element of cowardice among too many of us who blanch
at the thought of fighting back when accused of racism or an
unwillingness to "discuss race," whatever that means. We are reluctant
to inflame or we think that perhaps it is understandable that some
black Americans believe that all white Americans are inherently racist
in thought and action and, as such, those who prattle on about white
racism are not checked and required to defend their statements.

Too many of us are unwilling to risk the censure of our
self-proclaimed betters, or risk being labeled racists for fear of
retribution in the workplace or the neighborhood. Too many of us are
unwilling to say out loud that we truly live by the credo laid down so
eloquently by Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial in 1963 and demand that it be proved otherwise. Too many of
us are reluctant to remind others that the "salient datum," as William
F. Buckley, Jr., observed in Tennessee shortly after Dr. King was
murdered, was not that the United States bred the murderer but that
"we bred the most widely shared and the most intensely felt grief...as
if felt over the loss of one's own sons."

Too many of us are unwilling to respond to real racism perpetrated by
the likes of Eric Holder, Barack Obama, and Jeremiah Wright by
repudiating their bigotry in loud, bold language. Instead we slink to
diversity awareness programs at work and school and pretend they are
useful. We yield to the propaganda our children - all of our children
- are fed in government schools at the expense of the canons of
Western civilization without standing up to demand better of our
educators. When reluctant to stand up for our children against the
onslaught of illiberal education, it is difficult to imagine how much
more cowardly we could be.

Yes, there are rabid racists about in the land. They come in all
shades. But they are few in relative number. Yet too many of us have
cowered in the face of these racial bullies. No more. Americans of
good faith, Americans who live our lives with love in our hearts,
charity in our actions, and malice toward only those who seek to
destroy us must stand up for ourselves and resist these baseless
charges and worthless observations. It is obvious that our acts alone
do not satisfy the race-warmongers among us, and it behooves us to
conclude that they never will.

We, Americans of goodwill, must push back and declare that the
sentiments of people like the attorney general are invalid, untrue,
and unacceptable. We must stand up and demand that our president state
clearly if he endorses the remarks of the attorney general who, it
must be remembered, serves at the pleasure of the president. Anything
else and we truly are cowards. Yet we know in our hearts that we are
not. Let us prove it once and for all, no matter what anyone might
say.


--
John H

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those
who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
Thomas Jefferson