Recently over the transom from Monterey Tom:
. . . I have had a strained relationship with a long-time black friend who really thinks that opposition to Barack Obama is racially based. Beyond the personal level, I despise the tactic of dividing people in this country and capitalizing on the fact that some people love to nurture grievances derived from vicarious experiences. It always been a goal of the Left to make people hate not only their countries but their whole civilization. After all, how can you get someone to kill his father unless can get that man first to hate his father?
Well Tom, perhaps you ought to drop this guy as a friend. How can you be friends with someone who willfully believes something so plainly false, not to mention divisive and deeply offensive to those who have argued carefully and dispassionately against Obama's policies?
Anyone who thinks that opposition to Obama's policies derives from racial animus is delusional, on this point if not in general.
But assuming you value or need his friendship, then perhaps you ought to sit your friend down and very gently explain to him the distinction between a person and the policies he advocates. Explain that we conservatives are opposed to the policies of Obama, not the man. While we are not happy that a leftist is in the White House, we are very happy that a black man is there even though he is only half-black: it gives the lie to the oft-repeated leftist slander that the U. S. is institutionally racist.
But I predict that you will not get anywhere with your friend, not because he is black, but because he is a liberal.
You're right: the grievances many blacks love to nurture derive from vicarious experiences. They themselves have not experienced slavery or even Jim Crow. On the contrary, they have profited from the wonderful opportunities this country offers. But, having listened to race-baiters such as Brother Jesse and Brother Al, they think that the way forward for them is the via negativa of grievance-mongering when the latter is one of the marks of a loser and is sure to make them worse off than they are now.
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