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?A Nation Of Cowards??

In longwinded remarks at the Department of Justice commemorating Black History Month, Attorney General Eric Holder called us ?essentially a nation of cowards? because ?we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.?

We commemorated five years ago, the 50th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. And though the world in which we now live is fundamentally different than that which existed then, this nation has still not come to grips with its racial past nor has it been willing to contemplate, in a truly meaningful way, the diverse future it is fated to have. To our detriment, this is typical of the way in which this nation deals with issues of race

HatTip to Jonah Goldberg, who observed, first, that

we talk about race a great, great, great deal in this country....

Second, to the extent we don?t talk about race in this country the primary reason is that liberals and racial activists have an annoying habit of attacking anyone who doesn?t read from a liberal script [as] ?racists? or, if they?re lucky, ?insensitive.?

Thus ?cowardice? is defined as refusal to do as [you?re] told when that would in fact be the cowardly thing to do.

?[I}f we are to make progress in this area,? the Attorney General intoned, ?we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.? I guess that makes him a fan of DISCRIMINATIONS.

Or maybe not, for he also says:

There can ... be very legitimate debate about the question of affirmative action. This debate can, and should, be nuanced, principled and spirited. But the conversation that we now engage in as a nation on this and other racial subjects is too often simplistic and left to those on the extremes who are not hesitant to use these issues to advance nothing more than their own, narrow self interest

As someone on one of those ?extremes? ? the one that insists that treating some people better and others worse because of their race is wrong ? I resent the accusation that my friends and I are ?using? this issue ?to advance nothing more than [our] own, narrow self-interest.? (Now, if someone would pay me handsomely, or even un-handsomely, for writing this blog, I might have to rewrite this objection.)

Most of the Attorney General?s speech was taken up with a lament over our lack of meaningful conversations about race and our continued social segregation, but I did find one interesting comment:

As a nation we should use Black History month as a means to deal with this continuing problem [voluntary social segregation]. By creating what will admittedly be, at first, artificial opportunities to engage one another we can hasten the day when the dream of individual, character based, acceptance can actually be realized.

I have a suggestion: if the Attorney General really wants to hasten the day when we are all judged as individuals based on our character, not our race, he can do much better than give a rhetorically fluffy speech once a year. He could draft an executive order and legislation that would eliminate all federal policies and programs that employ preferences based on race.

Full post as published by Discriminations on February 18, 2009 (boomark / email).