A disaster for race relations

Victor Davis Hanson gives some voice to suspicions I have had since the whole Obama/Wright deal started:

Watching the parade of apologists for Rev. Wright’s hatred—“garlic noses”; “KKK of A;” “God Damn America;” “Condamnesia;” the U.S. deserved 9/11; America is no different from al-Qaeda; we caused the AIDs virus; Israel is a “dirty word” and sought an Arab and black ethnic bomb, etc—is, well, depressing. Instead of offering distance from Wright, far too many African-American professors and pastors interviewed on the cable stations the last few nights instead praised his brilliance and inspiration.

At best, there was a feeble ‘you just don’t get it’ about the venting and wink-and-nod culture of the black church. But the net message from the African-American liberal establishment, at least I fear, seems to be something like the following: ‘Wright is not going to offer an apology and we aren’t embarrassed about his ranting, which is not ranting at all, but rather historical and biblical exegesis which we endorse. And the problem is yours, not ours, since we expect exemption—given the history of race in this country—from your so-called norms of public discourse.’

This is what the triangulation of Obama has helped to unleash: most Americans will now doubt the moral authority of the African-American intellectual and religious community not just to question the questionable racial remarks of a Bill Clinton, Ed Rendell, or Geraldine Ferraro, but also the Wright-like crudity of a Don Imus or a Michael Richards. Context is now king.

This disastrous regression in race relations is the natural dividend of liberal identity politics, most recently brought to the fore by the wife of the first “black President”, the first “transracial” black Presidential candidate, and the “prophet” and “healer” Reverend Wright.

If anything, Hanson understates the magnitude of the disaster and its dimension.

Wright's statements are every bit as irrational, loathsome and racist as anything out of the Ku Klux Klan or, come to think of it, the Nazis. Those outside the black community generally hold this view, as do a goo many of those within the black community. Obama's longstanding, intimate ties to this ... thing and his refusal to denounce those statements has doomed his candidacy. If the Dems figured that cannot win without the "black vote," an Obama nomination gives them the chance to see if they can win without the "white vote." For that is what it will come down to. Obama's negatives have skyrocketed since the Wright revelations. Whites in general will not vote for someone who is so blatantly racist against them. There are not nearly enough guilt-ridden, bleeding heart white liberals to help him in the general election. Should the Dems nominate Obama, he will be defeated in the general election, and he may take the Dems with him, tarnishing them as a party with his racism.

But it gets worse. Far worse.

The reaction to the Wright revelations within the black community suggests that statements such as Wright's are not at all uncommon in inner city black churches. Wright and his successor preacher are teaching their congregation to "hate whitey" and hate America.

Multiply that by ... how many churches? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? And how many blacks would be hearing and believing this message? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? We don't know.

But this very frightening and very real possibility is now apparent outside the black community. And how do you think those outside the black community feel about that?

Wright claims that "his people" have been hurt by racism. That he is helping to perpetuate the racism that he says hurts his people either hasn't occurred to him or simply is not as important to him as maintaining his power over his congregation.

But that is irrelevant to those outside the black community, both from a practical and a philosophical standpoint. Philosophically, whites may feel that after all the efforts they have made to make up for past wrongs, to meet the black community halfway, this is the result? That sucking sound you heard was the Well of Understanding drying up.

And what about practicalities? I have suggested elsewhere that the vast majority of anti-black racism today is not latent or irrational but rational and reactive as a result of the disparate crime rate among blacks and the general rejection by the black community in most inner cities of efforts to bring that crime rate under control. Far, far too many times, black thugs commit horrific crimes and the inner city black community often rallies around them and rips the victims, particularly if those victims are white. These days, when police shoot a black thug in commission of a crime, it is now expected to have protests or even riots in support of the criminal.

How do you think those outside the black community view this state of affairs? Non-blacks seeing a young, black male on a street wearing baggy pants that reveal his buttcrack, massive gold chains, gold teeth and a ballcap at an odd angle already fear such individuals -- and are called "racists" for doing so by the black community and white liberals. Now, you add on top of that pretty mental image the thought that such an individual has been taught to "hate whitey" and views himself at war with your race. What do you think the reaction will be?

About the only thing good that has come out of this affair is that the subject of black racism, so often taboo, is now open for discussion, because Wright has so visibly demonstrated it, and has provided evidence that it is far, far more prevalent than white racism.

Aside from that -- and that it has poisoned the presidential candidacy of a charismatic figure who would make an even worse president than Jimmy Carter, which I didn't even know was possible -- the Wright affair has been a disaster.