My Democratic friends don’t like it when I point out that their party was the party of slavery in the 19th century, the party of segregation and Jim Crow at the turn of the 20th century, and the party of neo-segregation now with their support of identity politics, Black Lives Matter, and the philosophy of Ibram X. Kendi, according to which, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
Democrats fancy themselves the party of progressive liberalism.
They think of themselves as anti-racist.
But such is the pressure of political correctness that anti-racism today means discrimination based on race.
This has been the mournful lesson of affirmative action.
It began life trying to root out racial discrimination.
Employment and advancement were to be made “without regard” for race, ethnic origin, and so forth.
It wasn’t long, however, before that social and academic preferment was decided with regard to little else.
Here, as elsewhere in our society, a strange metamorphosis took place through which an institution dedicated to X suddenly began promoting not-X.
Remember when colleges and universities were dedicated to preserving and transmitting the highest values of our civilization?
Yes, it was a long time ago.
Now most of them are assiduously endeavoring to undermine that civilization and the values upon which it stands.
“Affirmative action” was meant to desensitize us to race, to judge people on their “character” (as Martin Luther King Jr. said), not the color of their skin.
But it has had the opposite effect.
It has made us—or at least the mandarins who rule our country and their lieutenants in the great HR department of the world—hypersensitive to race, peeling off the protective moral calluses that allow social interaction to proceed smoothly and exposing the angry nerve endings of our resentments to the world.
Biden made headlines with his talk.
Not because of anything uplifting or perceptive or unifying that he said.
No, he made headlines because he said, “The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy ... and I’m not just saying this because I’m at a black HBCU.”
“The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland,” mind.
They’re both correct, of course.
As has often been observed, the demand for white racism in contemporary America far exceeds the supply.
Cynics point out that Biden played the ace of spades race card in an effort to appeal to black voters, without whom the Democrats’ new plantation system would shatter.
The Democrats require 90-plus percent of the black vote if they’re to remain in office.
They know this.
Race hucksters such as Al Sharpton and Ibram X. Kendi (né Ibram Henry Rogers, by the way) certainly know it.
But Biden, however much he pandered to his audience at Howard, was a puppet as well as a cynical puppeteer.
He prefaced his above statement by saying that the battle against racism is “never really over.”
Nevertheless, he said, we must all join hands and choose “love over hate, unity over disunion, progress over retreat,” and above all, we must battle against the “poison of white supremacy.”
Where is this dreaded poison to be found?
Everywhere.
Or, to be more specific, anywhere that Republicans dwell.
Do you suppose Biden’s audience at Howard bought a scintilla of this hogwash?
I don’t know.
In their heart of hearts, probably passing few.
But there are subsidies and political power at stake, so who knows?
One thing that’s for certain: Joe Biden, like his mentor Barack Obama, has fanned the flames of racial animosity to the kindling point.
He believes that he can control the resulting conflagration.
I wouldn’t be so certain.
