Having a black president was supposed to be the end of racial division in America. It was supposed to show that race was no longer an issue. Well, that hasn’t exactly occurred. But who is to blame for that?
As Jonah Goldberg asks in his latest column, “What if America transcended race, and Barack Obama wasn’t invited?” He goes on to note, in his own style: “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, liberal Democrats have to accuse their opponents of racism.”
He then asserts, “From Day 1, Obama’s supporters have tirelessly cultivated the idea that anything inconvenient for the first black president just might be terribly, terribly racist.”
In other words, if you oppose him on anything, you must be a racist.
Take healthcare, for example:
Suddenly, if conservatives want to transcend race, we have to agree to massive increases in the size of government and socialized medicine.
That’s not transcending race, it’s using Obama’s race to bully the opposition into acquiescence. Actually transcending race would require treating Obama like any other president.
I used to hear people talk about knee-jerk reactions, but it took a while for me to truly understand what that means. Here’s a quick primer:
I’m afraid the Left is becoming far too easy to lampoon. And it’s true, unfortunately, that actual conversations are becoming rare. You can’t converse with someone who reflexively breaks into ideological jargon.
My hope is that I’ll never react in that manner, and that I can teach my students not to do so. God wants thinking people, not caricatures.