The Messiah's pariah. . .
. . .took it on the chin today, when Northwestern University yanked his honorary degree from the lectern. That has to smart, given the standards of your typical university, and Northwestern's stellar reputation as a haven of leftwing thought.
Aside from the implications with regard to the broader left, you have to wonder what this all means for the so-called "black community". That, actually, has been the most troubling aspect of the whole uproar. Since Obama has distanced himself from Wright this week, there's been considerable gnashing of teeth among the black left punditry. Witness the article by Mary Mitchell to which I linked last night.
What offended me, aside from the outright politico-racial whorishness that the entire column embodied, was the way in which Mitchell sought to draw a dividing line between the "black community" as it is represented by Jeremiah Wright, and the rest of the world. Not only did she take offense at the notion that "white punditry" might dare utter a disparaging word about what is said within black churches, she seemed to be trying to make the case that anyone who was offended by Jeremiah Wright's unmitigated idiocy was attacking the entire "black community".
Taken to its logical conclusion, Mary Mitchell's defense of Wright seems to be based on the fatuous notion that, as a representative of the "black community", Jeremiah Wright is off-limits with regard to criticism. That being the case, it doesn't matter whether or not you're a member of the dastardly "white punditry" class. You can be black and still find yourself on the outs with Mitchell. You will have "sold out" the community.
What it amounts to is racial McCarthyism. It's a way of bullying dissenters into acquiescence. And, if Barack Obama doesn't take a firm stand against the kind of filthy stupidity that Mary Mitchell and others are propagating in an attempt to shield the radical black left from any form of criticism, it will be an indication of just how weak a leader we can expect to have should he somehow be elected to the White House.
The time to rid political culture of the influence of the likes of Mitchell has come. Until she and her ilk (Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, et. al.) are honestly and frankly challenged before the eyes of all Americans in their moronic assertions of black infallibility , they will continue to be a noxious presence in the quest for liberty and justice for all.
I daresay that anyone who has had occasion to engage me on matters of racial politics, particularly over the last few years when such matters seem to have taken on a more prominent role in political discussions, will agree that I'm not one who is quickly stirred to anger by people who choose to celebrate their cultural uniqueness. I frequently go out of my way to impute the most innocuous of motives to people who make overt celebratory displays of pride in the cultures of their non-American forebears, very often at odds with my fellow conservatives. I believe that it is not only possible, but ultimately desirable for people to truly and deeply love America while embracing the traditions and cultures from which their progenitors hail. I don't want to live in an America that can't tolerate a St. Patrick's Day or a Columbus Day out of a sense of insecurity that it might be somehow deleterious to Americanism.
But, when the shrieking banshees of various "communities" seek to wall off themselves from the the criticism of Americans at large, especially when America at large is the target of so much of the communities' criticism, I'll draw a bright, defiant line every time. And, when folks like Mitchell, West, Dyson, and Smiley seek to play the role of overseer when much-needed dissidents break free of their intellectual shackles, I'm filled with an almost indescribable disgust that, from now on, I feel absolutely no desire to disguise.
People like Rev. Wright, to a minute degree, can be excused for their heresies simply because their views are so plainly and obviously ignorant and loathsome that moral outrage can be easily expressed, and their statements can be openly and objectively put into context and criticized. But, when there's a cadre of intellectuals, writers and pundits who enforce a blatant code of intellectual segregation within the "black community", the violation of which carries the threat of excommunication, there must be a loud, unremitting voice speaking truth to that iniquitous power.
Aside from the implications with regard to the broader left, you have to wonder what this all means for the so-called "black community". That, actually, has been the most troubling aspect of the whole uproar. Since Obama has distanced himself from Wright this week, there's been considerable gnashing of teeth among the black left punditry. Witness the article by Mary Mitchell to which I linked last night.
What offended me, aside from the outright politico-racial whorishness that the entire column embodied, was the way in which Mitchell sought to draw a dividing line between the "black community" as it is represented by Jeremiah Wright, and the rest of the world. Not only did she take offense at the notion that "white punditry" might dare utter a disparaging word about what is said within black churches, she seemed to be trying to make the case that anyone who was offended by Jeremiah Wright's unmitigated idiocy was attacking the entire "black community".
Taken to its logical conclusion, Mary Mitchell's defense of Wright seems to be based on the fatuous notion that, as a representative of the "black community", Jeremiah Wright is off-limits with regard to criticism. That being the case, it doesn't matter whether or not you're a member of the dastardly "white punditry" class. You can be black and still find yourself on the outs with Mitchell. You will have "sold out" the community.
What it amounts to is racial McCarthyism. It's a way of bullying dissenters into acquiescence. And, if Barack Obama doesn't take a firm stand against the kind of filthy stupidity that Mary Mitchell and others are propagating in an attempt to shield the radical black left from any form of criticism, it will be an indication of just how weak a leader we can expect to have should he somehow be elected to the White House.
The time to rid political culture of the influence of the likes of Mitchell has come. Until she and her ilk (Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, et. al.) are honestly and frankly challenged before the eyes of all Americans in their moronic assertions of black infallibility , they will continue to be a noxious presence in the quest for liberty and justice for all.
I daresay that anyone who has had occasion to engage me on matters of racial politics, particularly over the last few years when such matters seem to have taken on a more prominent role in political discussions, will agree that I'm not one who is quickly stirred to anger by people who choose to celebrate their cultural uniqueness. I frequently go out of my way to impute the most innocuous of motives to people who make overt celebratory displays of pride in the cultures of their non-American forebears, very often at odds with my fellow conservatives. I believe that it is not only possible, but ultimately desirable for people to truly and deeply love America while embracing the traditions and cultures from which their progenitors hail. I don't want to live in an America that can't tolerate a St. Patrick's Day or a Columbus Day out of a sense of insecurity that it might be somehow deleterious to Americanism.
But, when the shrieking banshees of various "communities" seek to wall off themselves from the the criticism of Americans at large, especially when America at large is the target of so much of the communities' criticism, I'll draw a bright, defiant line every time. And, when folks like Mitchell, West, Dyson, and Smiley seek to play the role of overseer when much-needed dissidents break free of their intellectual shackles, I'm filled with an almost indescribable disgust that, from now on, I feel absolutely no desire to disguise.
People like Rev. Wright, to a minute degree, can be excused for their heresies simply because their views are so plainly and obviously ignorant and loathsome that moral outrage can be easily expressed, and their statements can be openly and objectively put into context and criticized. But, when there's a cadre of intellectuals, writers and pundits who enforce a blatant code of intellectual segregation within the "black community", the violation of which carries the threat of excommunication, there must be a loud, unremitting voice speaking truth to that iniquitous power.
posted by MsFalconersCabanaBoy @ 3:18 PM
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