I was brought up in what was, and what may still be the most segregated city in America—Chicago Illinois. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that race relations in this country had been steadily improving for decades…that is, until Barrack Obama was elected president.
I also believe I can pinpoint the date race relations began to deteriorate; it was on July 22nd, 2009. On that day Barrack Obama abruptly turned a press conference that was ostensibly about healthcare but instead focused on race and became an iconic moment in American race relations, the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by the Cambridge Massachusetts Police.
Gates had been arrested earlier in the week on a disorderly conduct charge after a confrontation with a police officer inside his own home, a charge that was quickly dropped. It should be noted too, that to this day, many facts of the case remain in dispute; but the new president exhibited little doubt about who he believed had been wronged when he said, “I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.” And it was the phrase, “…the Cambridge police acted stupidly…” that turned American race relations on its ear.
~ It Continues to this Day~
In a recent podcast of “Renegades: Born in the USA,” with his pal Bruce Springsteen, Obama wanted to illustrate the point and used Springsteen’s long-time sax player, Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, a black man who died in 2011 after playing with Springsteen for 37 years as an example.
“What Bruce and Clarence portrayed on stage was essentially a reconciliation,” Obama stated, and the uber-liberal Springsteen immediately agreed. “But most of your audiences were primarily white,” added Obama, “and they can love Clarence when he’s on stage but if they ran into him in a bar suddenly the N-word comes out,” “Yeah,” Springsteen said dutifully as he dissed his fans so he could agree with and please his “woke” idol Obama. I mean, has anyone ever heard of the politically correct Springsteen admonish his fans on the matter during the thirty-seven years he and “Big Man” played together? I didn’t think so. What Obama was doing was creating a ‘straw man’ issue out of whole cloth.
In both instances Obama had absolutely no knowledge of the people or the environment he was talking about. He admitted he didn’t have all the facts in the Gates case and living in Honolulu the young Obama had no way of knowing that during the 70s & 80s fans of Springsteen and Clemons would routinely drive from bar to bar on weekends chasing the rumors the duo would be playing for free at the Stone Pony or McLoone’s or other local hot spots–an activity that can hardly be called racist.
When the President of the United States intones that an individual or a group of people are “racist” because of the color of their skin, it’s as racist as the racism he is accusing the people of being. Barrack Obama was given a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform the subject of race in America—and he blew it. And before we forget, Barrack Obama was elected by white people, and if his refrain had been to uplift and rather than to judge, he could have moved the nation towards true colorblindness. A man with his charisma and oratory skills should have told Americans to embrace each other and unify based on our common humanity…and then led by example. Instead, Obama chose to divide, and his message reverberates to this day as the legacy media led by CNN, MSNBC and NY Times scream how the Virginia gubernatorial race was really won by “white supremacists.”
Unfortunately, much of this type of racism is being taught in our public schools. I don’t know how many schools embrace Critical Race Theory and how many don’t, but where it is taught our kids are not receiving an honest picture of race, in fact, quite the opposite. Not too long ago a Virginia mother testified in front of the Loudoun County school board the story of her six-year-old daughter asking her if she was born evil because she was white. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/29/mom-6-year-old-asked-if-she-was-born-evil-because-she-is-white/?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=
This 6-year-old girl believed she was “evil”, not because of anything she did or said, but because of her skin color. C’mon folks, six-year-olds are the sweetest and most loving people on the planet. And any teacher who would try to convince them that they are evil, are themselves evil, and should never allowed to teach again.
As Judd Garrett recently opined, “All this racialization of America is making the country more racist, not less, more divided, not less, more hate-filled, not less. We are regressing as a society in our blind pursuit of phony progressivism. And people like Barack Obama are leading the charge.”
Quote of the day: “A democracy cannot exist unless everyone, regardless of race, color, or creed has the same rights and responsibilities.” – Tucker Carlson
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