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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 10, 2008 / 5 Nissan 5768

Obama or not, America still a ‘racist nation’

By Larry Elder


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Republicans show more optimism about race relations than do Democrats. A June 2007 Gallup Poll asked Republicans and Democrats to rate relations between blacks and whites. Among Democrats, 67 percent said relations were "somewhat good" or "very good," while 77 percent of Republicans gave those answers. Similarly, 22 percent of Republicans ranked black/white race relations as "somewhat bad" or "very bad," yet 31 percent of Democrats gave those pessimistic responses.


As I wrote in my new book, "Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card--and Lose", a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll asked which type of presidential candidate would you not vote for, even if that candidate agreed with you on most issues. More Democrats (17 percent) than Republicans (13 percent) wouldn't vote for a Mormon. For a 72-year-old candidate — again, more Democrats (19 percent) than Republicans (12 percent) refused to vote for someone that age. Likewise more Democrats (4 percent) than Republicans (3 percent) ruled out voting for a black candidate.


Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a black Clinton supporter, explained why whites vote for Obama. According to Cleaver, "This is (their) chance to demonstrate that we have been able to get this boogeyman called race behind us. And so they are going to vote for him, whether he has credentials or not, whether he has any experience …"


Here's where things get interesting.


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As to the argument that an Obama election would show an America overcoming its history of racial injustice, Cleaver says no, it would show the opposite. "Yet Cleaver asserts," according to an Associated Press article, "that Obama as president could actually hamper efforts to curb racial injustice. He said future concerns about race 'would be met with rejection because we've already demonstrated that we're not a racist nation.'"


In other words, whites cleverly intend to vote for Obama — not because they consider him qualified or the better candidate, but so that they can diminish future allegations of alleged racism and racial injustice. But Cleaver sees through the plot. To Cleaver, America remains a "racist nation." And Obama as president simply pulls the wool over the eyes of America, minimizing the continued and future victims of racism, while giving America's racists free rein to continue their deviousness.


Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, another Clinton supporter, makes the opposite argument. Ferraro claims that Obama's race gives him an advantage that obscures his otherwise thin resume. "If Obama was a white man," said Ferraro, "he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."


Black state Sen. Robert Ford, D-S.C., also a Clinton supporter, takes the Cleaver position. In explaining his refusal to support Obama, Ford said, "It's a slim possibility for (Obama) to get the nomination, but then everybody else is doomed. Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything. I'm a gambling man. I love Obama. But I'm not going to kill myself."


Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can now breathe easier. If Obama loses, blame race. If Obama wins, blame race. Either way, Obama's election, as regards race relations, means nothing. So Jackson and Sharpton and the rest of the like-minded traveling circus can remain in the business of ferreting out, exploiting and often exaggerating allegations of racism for face time on TV and continued relevance.


In 1911, former slave Booker T. Washington prophetically wrote about "black leaders" like Cleaver, Jackson and Sharpton: "There is (a) class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. … There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public."

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.

JWR contributor Larry Elder is the author of, most recently, "Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card--and Lose." (Proceeds from sales help fund JWR)

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