John McCain recently revealed in an interview with George Stephanopoulos that he supported the proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution that would ban "preferential treatment" on the basis of "race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin." Barack Obama immediately fired back saying he was "disappointed" in McCain’s position.
"You know, the truth of the matter is, these are not designed to solve a big problem, but they’re all too often designed to drive a wedge between people," Obama said speaking to a conference of minority journalists.
With this statement, yet again, Barack Obama displays his concern with speeches over action — design over finished product. The sinister intentions of the architects of this referendum are about as relevant to the law as what they had for breakfast that morning or what color tie they were sporting. The truth of the matter is, Senator Obama, the proposed amendment advocates total equality — something you do not advocate as you pander to the minority voter.
As a white man, I do not pretend to understand first-hand the hardship of minorities. However, what I do understand is that poverty and hardship have no racial preference. The white perception of "leveling the playing field" more often than not results in a growing resentment toward a privileged few who are given preferential treatment with college loans or government jobs based on sex, religion, or skin color.
White resentment can be thought of as a social purgatory between the heaven of total assimilation of all Americans and the Hell of racism and segregation. White resentment is often confused with racism, yet resentment toward the preferential treatment of minorities is not usually harbored by high-powered lawyers or brokers living in New York City or Washington D.C. They are harbored in trailers in Kentucky or Arkansas, or in modest homes in the suburbs by working-class whites simply trying to make ends meet. Their frustration comes not from money (or lack of), not from some irrational disdain for dark-colored skin, but from the lack of equal opportunity. The divisive wedge, Senator Obama, is not equality for all but the antiquated notion that some people are more deserving than others. That wedge is Affirmative Action.
White resentment, the product of Affirmative Action, is partially founded by an elite media culture who insists that so-called blue-collar whites are all racist (which is why they supported Hillary Clinton), when in fact, they are not. It is impossible to disprove a negative — they have no badge to flash and prove this. So when these voters in West Virginia and Kentucky are immediately branded as racist because they do not support Barack Obama, and Obama never bothers to defend them against the media smear tactics, the resentment begins to intensify. Perhaps they are even one step closer to becoming the full-blown racists they are already accused of being. Apparently, this is of no concern to Barack Obama, but if the country can learn to come together since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, surely we can grow apart again just as fast.
Another cause of white resentment is hypocrisy. Barack Obama says he believes a constitutional amendment to bar preferential treatment by public entities on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin is "divisive". Yet after six months of using his own race as a weapon against such stalwart Democrats as Bill Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro (who have spent their entire political lives fighting for racial equality) by inferring that their comments in opposition to his candidacy were racist, he has shown us time and time again he is far more concerned with winning the election than he is in healing the racial wounds in America.
Hypocrisy also exists in Black Entertainment Television, Ebony magazine, Obama’s black separatist church, and the Congressional Black Caucus, leaving many white Americans scratching their heads as to why an unqualified black candidate should be given the keys to the White House simply as a token of our apologies for the last 200 years when "the playing field" already has an incline like the side of the Matterhorn.
Jesse Jackson popularized the term "African-American" in the 1980s, and by doing so drove a wedge between black people and the rest of America who were clearly on the road to healing. To advocate the construction of a mental wall — or hyphen — that separates black Americans from the rest of the country is the sort of action one would expect from a race hustler who makes his living by stoking the fires while pretending to fight to extinguish them. Such divisive actions are even more deplorable when advanced by a presidential candidate willing to stoke the fires in order to quench his thirst for power by winning the White House.
To his credit, Barack Obama spoke out against Jesse Jackson’s miserable failures as a model for young, black Americans by lashing out at unmarried fathers who shun responsibility and desert their families. But by continuing to restrain the rest of the nation in verbal shackles anytime we speak out against his candidacy, by allowing his opposition to be labeled as racists, and by allowing other forms of discrimination to be used against his opponents (think about his silence toward the sexism used against Hillary Clinton, or his continued use of the word "confused" when referring to John McCain), Barack Obama continues to show us that he isn’t interested in equality at all.
Barack Obama has used his historical candidacy as the self-proclaimed unifier to do nothing but pick at America’s racial scab anytime it benefits his quest for the White House. Sexism and ageism be damned. The calendar-driven Barack Obama only speaks out against racism, and only then if it helps him win the White House (And it happens to be Father’s Day. Or he’s busted over Rev. Jeremiah Wright.) while the rest of the nation remains enslaved. By continuing to ignore the plight of the rest of America, Barack Obama is showing himself to be nothing more than another "black candidate" with the same black centrist goals — Jesse Jackson in a brand-new suit.
This country is much too diverse for Jackson/Obama-style tunnel-vision politics. The presidency is too important to hand over to a self-serving race-baiter promoting the agenda of just a precious selected few. This type of hypocrisy is the root of white resentment in America, and Barack Obama simply couldn’t care less. Onward to the White House.
