by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n W<\/span>hen Barack Obama accused Hillary Clinton of \u201cplaying the gender card,\u201d the hypocrisy that typically defines our public discourse on race descended into the surreal. Obama\u2019s whole career has been created by and has exploited the perception that he \u2014 son of a white mother and an African father, raised in Hawaii, graduate of Columbia and Harvard \u2014 is \u201cblack,\u201d that is, a victim of America\u2019s incorrigible racism and oppression. In other words, Obama has gotten to where he is by subtly playing, or allowing others to play for him, the most powerful trump card in the game of social and political power.<\/p>\n The rules of this game state that all blacks, no matter how privileged, are victims, all whites are racist oppressors who just don\u2019t \u201cget it,\u201d all black cultural dysfunction is a consequence of white racism, and only whites who loudly and repeatedly acknowledge their guilt can redeem themselves by distributing social, economic, and political reparations. The Amarillo Slims of this game are the Democrats and racial hustlers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Cornel West. But even some Republicans these days have accepted the rigged rules. Just look at how easily the whole Katrina disaster, a consequence of an entrenched, inept black city government, was laid at the feet of the Bush administration.<\/p>\n But there is a more insidious consequence of this racial narrative \u2014 the institutionalizing of black inferiority and dependence. Behind the guilt of white liberals lurks a smug assertion of power: we who have the power to oppress also have the power to redress. As the African proverb has it, the hand that gives is always above the hand that receives. To be a victim is to be inferior, always to be looking up at one\u2019s oppressor and one\u2019s deliverer.<\/p>\n Which is another way of saying, as Jim Sleeper, Thomas Sowell, and Shelby Steele have said, that liberal racial attitudes are indeed racist: they categorize millions of people as inferior. That the inferiority is explained as a consequence of environment or history rather than genes doesn\u2019t make that much difference in the end. History has changed, and the environment has changed, but despite the vast improvement in the lives of black Americans, the presumption of victimhood, and perforce of inferiority, persists, as though there is no difference between being passed up by a cabbie and being lynched by the Klan. If this presumption were not so, the other Democrats in the primary race by now would have demolished the lightweight Obama\u2019s preposterous candidacy by ridiculing his pretensions to \u201cblackness.\u201d Wouldn\u2019t you love to see Hillary run an ad in which Obama\u2019s nerdy little dance with Ellen Degeneres was set to the tune of Tower of Power\u2019s \u201cYou Got to Funkifize\u201d?<\/p>\n T<\/span>he most disgusting expression of liberal racism, however, is seen in the demonization of any black person who strays off the liberal plantation and challenges this racial narrative. There\u2019s a sort of Fugitive Slave Law in America\u2019s public culture that allows white liberals to pursue and hound blacks who dare to think for themselves and challenge the imposition of a demeaning identity based on stereotypes. Exhibit number one, of course, is the continuing vilification of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. As his recently published memoirs show, here is a genuine story of black achievement in the teeth of prejudice, a tale of character and virtue overcoming harsh circumstances, a parable illustrating the power of the human spirit to transcend environment.<\/p>\n Yet rather than being an inspiring model for black Americans and an example of an empowering self-reliance, Justice Thomas has been viciously scorned and marginalized, for no other reason than the fact that his life and philosophy challenge the dominant liberal narrative of black inferiority and dependence on white largesse. He has committed the greatest crime a black man can commit in the liberal Decalogue: he thinks for himself and challenges received wisdom. White liberals will idolize illiterate rappers who glorify violence and demean women rather than respect a freethinking black man.<\/p>\n Once again we see how modern liberalism betrays its own principles. People are supposed to be individuals, judged by their own character and merits rather than by pigmentation or hair texture; yet blacks are lumped together and defined by stereotypes and generalizations that obscure individual particularity. Discrimination is the most heinous crime; yet liberals endorse programs like affirmative action that literally discriminate on the basis of those same stereotypes and generalizations. Liberals are eager to celebrate \u201cblack culture\u201d; yet they think that a people who survived 300 years of slavery, Jim Crow, and racism are still so weak and fragile that white people have to whisper the ludicrous euphemism \u201cn-word\u201d lest blacks become terminally traumatized.<\/p>\n Worse yet, liberals are supposed to prize free speech, the independent thinker, the \u201cdissident\u201d who challenges received wisdom and fossilized orthodoxy, the intellectual who is \u201cedgy\u201d and provocative and shakes up the \u201cestablishment.\u201d Yet black thinkers who do just that \u2014 Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele, for example \u2014 are marginalized, vilified, and turned into \u201cinvisible men\u201d by a liberal establishment clinging to outworn orthodoxies, all the while that postmodern minstrels like Cornel West are courted by Princeton and Harvard. So why marvel that a laughable tyro like Barack Obama, with no experience in the scruffy real world of performance, consequence, and accountability, is taken seriously as a contender for the presidency solely on the basis of his constructed \u201cblackness\u201d?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Bruce Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The assault on skilled, independent, intelligent blacks by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers When Barack Obama accused Hillary Clinton of \u201cplaying the gender card,\u201d the hypocrisy that typically defines our public discourse on race descended into the surreal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,752],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1pf","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2373,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-end-of-post-racialism\/","url_meta":{"origin":5409,"position":0},"title":"The End of Post-Racialism","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPageMagazine.com So much for Obama striking a new tone on race. President Obama\u2019s response during his press conference to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates \u2014 that the Cambridge police officer \u201cacted stupidly,\u201d despite Obama\u2019s confession that he didn\u2019t know what really had happened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8124,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/8124\/","url_meta":{"origin":5409,"position":1},"title":"The Progressive Racial Narrative and Its Beneficiaries","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Debunking the lies about race in America. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine A recent NBC\/Wall Street Journal poll reveals that nearly 6 in 10 people believe race relations are bad, with 23% saying they are \u201cvery bad.\u201d The causes of these perceptions are many, including nationally publicized police\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Contributors"","block_context":{"text":"Our Contributors","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"al_sharpton_speaking_reuters-450x337","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/al_sharpton_speaking_reuters-450x337.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3300,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-race-card\/","url_meta":{"origin":5409,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s Race Card","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The liberal media are in full Captain Renault mode, \u201cshocked, shocked\u201d to find race injected into the presidential campaign by a \u201cSwift-boating\u201d John McCain. How shameless can you get? The Obama campaign\u2013\u2013indeed, the whole of Obama\u2019s public existence\u2013\u2013is about nothing other than his perceived\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":663,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/get-ready-for-more-charges-of-racism\/","url_meta":{"origin":5409,"position":3},"title":"Get Ready For More Charges of Racism","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton FrontPage Magazine The implosion of the Obama administration will create more and more desperate narratives on the part of progressives as we head toward the November election. With no record of achievement to run on, Obama must try to misdirect voters by shifting blame elsewhere: so far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7227,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-eric-holder-doesnt-want-to-talk-about\/","url_meta":{"origin":5409,"position":4},"title":"What Eric Holder Doesn’t Want to Talk About","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 Remember when Attorney General Eric Holder called Americans a \u201cnation of cowards\u201d who put \u201ccertain subjects . . . off limits\u201d? Holder, of course, was referring to \u201csubjects\u201d that in fact we do nothing else but talk about non-stop \u2013 the refusal of whites\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Claude_McKay-237x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7166,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-race-hacks-defend-their-industry\/","url_meta":{"origin":5409,"position":5},"title":"The Race-Hacks Defend Their Industry","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. 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