So racism, when used correctly, is a term that should only apply when an individual makes a statement to describe the qualities and behaviors of an entire race. The key word used there is “entire.”
For example, there is little doubt that, among sane people, regardless of race, gender, creed, or national origin, you could find a single person who could sincerely tell you that Adolph Hitler’s behavior is a reflection of the entire white race or even a reflection of every German. Nor could you find someone who would assure you that the life of Mumia Abu Jamal (born Wesley Cook), the killer of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, is the perfect illustration of all black citizens.
Can an individual be racist? Of course they can. Saying otherwise shows a willful ignorance of the depths of human stupidity. One can safely say (meaning without too great a fear of contradiction) that David Duke is a racist. But one could also say that Al Sharpton is a racist, and be equally confident. An individual might be a racist, but to paint a collective group with the charge of racism is ridiculous, yet the charge is hurled at white Americans if even a single one of them is critical of our half-black President.
The President’s defenders claim that it is completely impossible for Barack Obama to have ever done anything in his life that was stupid and then rationalize this defense of our President by saying that the only possible reason anyone could possibly have to criticize him is because of the color of his skin, since all white Americans are racist. How transparently idiotic is that?
Boiled down to essentials, those on the left in cooperation with the professional race hustlers are saying that Obama couldn’t have made an error simply because he is black and any criticism must be based on racism. No other reason, in their bubble, could be valid and so the discussion of any of Obama’s (alleged) errors is over.
As a preemptive effort to defang the trolls and racialist obsessives, let me point out two things. First, my roommate in college was the only black student on campus – and we were not thrown together as a result of some lottery. We selected each other.
Second, my ex-wife and mother of my children is Vietnamese, and obviously that means that my two kids are of mixed race. (Hey, everybody brought home souvenirs from ‘Nam – mine just walked and talked!) I never thought of my ex as being any different from anyone else unless she destroyed the normal use of a common idiom, such as when she would occasionally say something such as “We could kill two birds with one rock”. Close, oh, so close, but a dead giveaway that English was not her native language.
But this also means that I’ve seen racist behavior, up-close and personal, and it has always come from an individual, never from a group.
So if I say that Obama is a jerk, it is a comment aimed at the individual man, and not the entire population of those who answer the question on government forms that asks “Race” with the word “Black.” Anyone who claims that I am a racist because I disagree with one individual is in fact showing that it is they who are the real racists.
Defending Obama solely on the basis of his skin color also shows that his defenders are intellectually bankrupt because they have no other arguments that could survive scrutiny.
