Holder: US A Nation Of Cowards On Race

So, you thought we were in the post racial era? That electing a 1/3 black, 1/3 Arab 1/3 white president was going to promote 'national healing', as so many pundits in the dinosaur media were quick to point out?

Boy, were you mistaken.

Eric Holder, our Attorney General had a few remarks to make in a speech to the assembled staff of the Justice Department to mark the occasion of Black History Month that should tell you the truth of the matter - the race issue in America will exist as long as people see themselves as able to exploit it:

Eric Holder, the nation's first black attorney general, said Wednesday the United States was "a nation of cowards" on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues. In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said.

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

Holder's speech echoed President Barack Obama's landmark address last year on race relations during the hotly contested Democratic primaries, when the then-candidate urged the nation to break "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years" and bemoaned the "chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." Obama delivered the speech to try to distance himself from the angry rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Holder cited that speech by Obama as part of the motivation for his words Wednesday, saying Americans need to overcome an ingrained inhibition against talking about race.

"If we're going to ever make progress, we're going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified," Holder told reporters after the speech.

In the speech, Holder urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education and economic disparities.

Race, Holder said, "is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation's history, this is in some ways understandable... If we are to make progress in this area, 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."

Most of us don't bother with a 'conversation' about race because it's ceased to matter for all but a minority of Americans unless race pimps like Al Sharpton bring it up, but since Mr. Holder wants it, I'm willing, provided we discuss a few things that are rarely if ever on the agenda:

* In the midst of lectures like this about the evils of white America, why is it so difficult for people like Holder to acknowledge that it was white America that fought a war to free the slaves, white America that passed every piece of civil rights legislation and that if white Americans hadn't decided that civil rights and desegregation were the right and proper thing to do, none of it would have happened?

* Today, in modern America, there is no home a black person cannot buy if he can pay for it, no restaurant that would refuse service and no university they cannot enter if they qualify - or as is sometimes the case nowadays, even if they don't.

There's no position in society black folks -or anyone else, for that matter - can't aspire to if they have the ambition, the drive and the intelligence. Was it a `nation of cowards' that brought all this to pass? Or is it cowardly to use the past as a tactic to excuse reverse bigotry like race based preferences and to gain political leverage in the present?

* Why is black racism and bigotry towards whites, Jews, Asians and Hispanics never a topic for discussion? For instance, according to the most recent Pew poll, blacks are more likely to be anti-Semitic and harbor anti-Semitic stereotypes than any other ethnic group, particularly those who have attended university. Why is that?

* Can we finally discuss the Democrats' War On Poverty and how it destabilized the black family?

* Why was President Obama's speech in Philadelphia Holder referred to essentially a lecture to white people on white racism when the ostensible purpose of the speech was for Obama to discuss his twenty year relationship with a black racist and anti-Semite and his church?

* During the recent presidential campaign, much was made about 'racist' white people who refused to vote for Obama because of his race.Were those black people that voted for Obama primarily because of his race guilty of racism as well?

* In universities across America there are black student unions, all black fraternities,(most of which prohibit anyone who is not black) and black studies courses. Yet if there were white equivalents, they would instantly be denounced as racist. Why is it that black organizations that prohibit non-blacks are somehow not considered racist?

There are undoubtedly a lot of other questions that come to mind if Eric Holder really wants to have a discussion on race, but I have a distinct feeling that Holder and people who think like him might be too cowardly to engage in it.

And in any event, most Americans could care less. Except, of course for people like Holder and a slew of guilty white Leftists who, deep down are exactly the sort of white folks who are uncomfortable dealing with black folks in their private lives that Holder was talking about.

Not that he'd ever acknowledge that.

Holder should stick to being a bagman and fixer for felons like Marc Ritchie and leave the speeches to Obama.

The current occupant of the White House probably feels exactly the same way Holder does, but he's a lot slicker about it.