The Fear of Being Called "Racist" Does More Damage These Days Than Actual Racism

There was a time when racism was a real problem in this country. Public officials (mostly Democrat) standing in doorways blocking access to black students, acts of violence against minorities, prejudice in a lot of different forms making the American dream difficult if not impossible for some of our citizens.

However, that day is passed. Acts of actual, bonafide racism are few and far between in this country. At least, racism as we used to know it. There is still racism, but it's coming from those who would cloak themselves in its mantle and declare themselves victims.

Today the fear of being called "racist" is doing more harm than actual racism.

It was the fear of being called "racist" that gave us the New Haven, CT firefighter case in which a test was thrown out because minorities didn't score well enough for liberal city officials. And it was the fear of being called "racist" that kept Republican Senators from properly attacking the credentials of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whose own words and writings have all the hallmarks of being racist and sexist.

And now it's the fear of being called "racist" which compels the city of Cambridge, MA to turn its back on one of its finest police officers because he dared to arrest a black man who broke into a house, refused to identify himself, and created a disturbance - while screaming that he was the victim of racism, of course. The city has offered an apology, but it's the racist Harvard professor who ought to be apologizing (read the police report).

And the list goes on. The City of Los Angeles didn't dare ask for remuneration for the huge costs of police protection and city services for the Michael Jackson funeral out of fear the black community would call them "racist".

Affirmative Action programs punish achievement and reward less qualified people simple because of the color of their skin. How does that help us achieve racial harmony when one group is discriminated against in favor of another?

The "War on Poverty", which was supposed to help us atone for past racial sins, has thrown trillions of dollars at the problem and accomplished absolutely nothing...except the destruction of the black family by replacing fathers with government checks. Today more than 70% of black kids are born out of wedlock and gang members replace father figures in young people's lives.

City leaders nationwide live in fear that something that happens in their communities will bring Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson and their media hounds to town to decry whatever mysterious "racism" might have occurred. Business leaders used to fear Mike Wallace and the 60 Minutes crew. They'd gladly take Wallace over the extortion offered by Jackson and Sharpton these days.

And while all this is going on, the first black president of the U.S., the man who promised us a post-racial America, just feeds the hysteria and deepens the divide. There's nothing post-racial about Barack Obama. He is a product of his past mentors, and it's a sordid collection of twisted minds that shaped his earlier years.

Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a country in which people would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

It'll never happen.

Not because racism against minorities will never go away - it's largely gone - but because there are people who make their living creating racial strife and disharmony. Complicit with them are those in positions of power, either in politics or the media, who don't have the guts to call them on it out of fear they'll be called "racist" too.

Or perhaps, because they too are benefitting from the manufactured strife.

It's a real shame. America should be better than this.