ORBUSMAX GUEST OP/ED: Democrats Should Stop Talking About Black People

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*** ORBUSMAX GUEST OP/ED *** Democrats Should Stop Talking About Black People - By Nicholas G. Jenkins ( http://www.TheFence.com ) November 15, 2003 Democrats are at it again. Last week, in an attempt to back off an earlier statement that he "wanted to be the candidate of guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," archetypal yankee Howard Dean informed America that it "needs to engage in a serious discussion about race." He might want to rethink his suggestion if he wants to win the White House, because "a serious discussion about race" is the last thing Americans - especially Democrats -- need. Maybe they don't get the same news and radio in Dean's Vermont as we do in the rest of America, but Americans - especially Americans who make their living in the media -- discuss race incessantly. Name an issue - the economy, crime, health care, airport security, SAT scores, emergency response times, college admissions, traffic stops, football coaches, Starbucks' growth plans - and odds are half the news organizations in America have figured out how black people are getting the short end of the proverbial stick. Liberals are particularly keen to talk about race when they're "analyzing" the actions of non-liberal white men. When Trent Lott said in December that he wished Strom Thurmond would have been president, liberals all but accused him of hauling out the old "Whites Only" signs. It was, of course, not possible that an old friend was toasting another old friend at what turned out to be his last birthday party. To his opponents, Lott was secretly pining for Jim Crow. Race was such the buzz at Christmas parties that eventually even Republicans urged Lott to resign - just so they could stop talking about him for the rest of their holidays. When Rush Limbaugh opined that Donovan McNabb was overrated and that the (mostly white) media was desirous to see a black quarterback succeed, he meant just what he said. A quarterback was overrated (many quarterbacks are, even white ones) and the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed. Both statements were factually correct. But to Rush's opponents, truth was no defense. It didn't matter that others in the media also thought that McNabb was overrated. Nor did it matter that many in the media did want a black quarterback to succeed. What Rush really meant - or so we were told - was that all black quarterbacks are overrated. And when Southerners fly the Confederate flag, they just be doing so out of a secret desire to see blacks back in the cotton fields. That they say they fly the Stars and Bars because they're proud of their Southern heritage is of little matter to yankee media types, who know better what Southerners are thinking than Southerners do. Flying the Confederate flag is insensitive, so they say. Anyone who flies it must be a closet racist. Period. (If anyone in the major media cared what I had to say, I wonder what they'd call me if I waxed bewilderment over the black community's collective lack of gratitude for all America's given them. After all, 350,000 Union soldiers gave their lives to free the slaves. And since the advent of the Great Society, whites have given blacks trillions of dollars in transfer payments in the form of government contracts and racial preferences. So far not a peep of "thanks." I am not so waxing, mind you, just wondering what they'd say if I did.) Which brings us back to Governor Dean's predicament. The good governor could have been more eloquent in saying he wanted to be the candidate for disaffected Southern voters, but he was undoubtedly right on in wanting to be their man. Because President Bush won all 13 states in the ol' Confederacy in 2000, and unless they take a few of those red states back, Democrats will have to run the rest of the proverbial table to win in '04. That's no easy feat. But Dean's opponents didn't get it. Instead of reaching out to Southern swing voters, Democrats Heismanned them with more derisive implications about race. John Ketchup Kerry likened guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks to members of the Ku Klux Klan. Al Sharpton called the Confederate flag "America's swastika." Dick Gephardt said "I don't want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.I will be the candidate for the guys with American flags in their pickup trucks." Even Dean jumped back into the act. Columnist Joe Klein reported in this week's TIME Magazine that Dean told him that, in Klein's words, "white people (need) to understand the impact of racism on African Americans." But when Klein asked him what African-Americans needed to understand, Dean retorted that "the African-American community doesn't need any lectures from me." Apparently only whites need lecturing. Then Dean told a crowd in Tallahassee that Southerners needed to stop basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays." Let the lecturing begin. Democrats shouldn't blame Southerners if they say "enough already." Likening an entire class to Nazis and the KKK is no way to win friends. Nor is telling them what they "need" to base their votes on, or implying what they are thinking. In this "serious discussion about race," Democrats have succeeded in alienating not only guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks, but Southerners who believe in God, the Second Amendment, and traditional family values. In other words, almost all of them! It's one thing for the media to impugn racist motives on famous people like Lott and Limbaugh. They get piled on, and their only ultimate defense is resignation. But non-racist, non-hyphenated voters have weapons that Lott and Limbaugh didn't. They are called ballots. All this talk about race is useful, alright. It's called the Confederacy to arms.

----------------------------------------------------------- Nicholas G. Jenkins ( http://www.NicholasGJenkins.com ) is a former lawyer (Georgetown 1994) and founder of "TheFence.com" (http://www.TheFence.com), a Seattle/Northwest-based news and discussion website.