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Jewish World Review December 20, 2012/ 6 Teves, 5773 The new racial derangement syndrome By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There is a different sort of racialist derangement spreading in the country -- and it is getting ugly. Here is actor Race-obsessed comedian Actor No one in Freeman's racial-purity obsessions were echoed on the In the 21st century, are we returning to the racial labyrinth of the19th-century Old Confederacy, where we measure our supposed racial DNA to the nth degree? Apparently yes. Unfortunately, the new racialist derangement is not confined to sports and entertainment. The Rev. Wasn't Obama's election supposed to mark a new post-racial era? What happened? For nearly a half-century, cultural relativism in the universities taught that racist speech was only bigotry if it came from those -- mostly white -- with power. Supposedly oppressed minorities could not themselves be real racists. But even if that bankrupt theory was once considered gospel, it is no longer convincing -- given that offenders such as Foxx, Rock and Lowery (who was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Obama) are among the more affluent and acclaimed Americans. The Obama administration must shoulder some of the blame. Attorney General The president himself urged Latinos to "punish our enemies." He weighed in unnecessarily during the Henry Louis Gates and Obama, during the campaign, brilliantly -- and cynically -- targeted particular hyphenated voting groups on the basis of their race and ethnicity -- on the assumption that such voters could be loosely united by opposition to a purported uncaring and shrinking conservative establishment. After the election, the Obama campaign asked its supporters to complete a survey that included a checklist with racial identifications -- with white omitted. There is a growing danger in this latest round of racial tribalism. Stirring up the pot for short-term political gain in a multiracial society is abjectly insane. If the new racialism grows unchecked, it will eventually lead to cycles of backlash and counter-backlash -- and some day to something like the Balkans or People are just people. But they can turn into veritable monsters when -- as a great American once warned -- they look to the color of our skin rather than the content of our character.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. Comment by clicking here. © 2012, TMS |
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