Democrats
and Republicans chant in unison jobs, jobs, jobs. President Obama offers an American Jobs plan, but
Republicans use the filibuster in the Senate to kill it and a Republican
majority will not consider it in the House. House Democrats offered a heftier jobs bill, but it is
ignored by the majority in control. Republicans offer more of the same - tax cuts for the rich whom they
call "job creators" - but they have put no actual jobs plan on the
table.
As a result,
15 million Americans still languish, officially unemployed, with another 10
million underemployed or so discouraged they have stopped looking for work.
One of
the leading Republican candidates for President, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, is an
advocate of Tenth Amendment (states' rights) solutions and we are suspicious of
anyone advocating Tenth Amendment solutions because that amendment protected
the peculiar institution. Further,
the Tenth Amendment solutions guy was also found to have taken friends,
colleagues and contributors hunting on a ranch widely known by the name on a
rock at its entrance called Niggerhead.
While in
the past, unacceptable language used by Minister Louis Farrakhan was
overwhelmingly condemned by a House resolution, Republicans voted down a
similar resolution that would have condemned Governor Perry for taking his
friends to hunt at a place with a racially offensive name.
Republicans
protect their own from charges of racism and the press doesn't vigorously pursue
the issue because Herman Cain says, "it's time to move on," and if
he, as an African American, isn't upset, why should others be perturbed. And Democrats don't want to discuss it
because it's a distraction from their jobs message.
But what
if not condemning racism when it raises its ugly head is actually diverting and
delaying the jobs discussion? What
if Herman Cain's presence in the race is actually camouflaging the fact that
President Obama's jobs plan (and virtually anything else he proposes) is
actually being blocked, not just by conservatives, but by white conservative
Republicans determined to use any means necessary, including race - as both
Republicans and Democrats have done in the past - to defeat America's first
African American President? If
Herman Cain was not in the race, could the press really ignore Gov. Perry's
hunting site with no apology for its name or use?
Why is
the word so offensive? Historically, the use of the "N" word by whites often preceded
an act of violence by the perpetrator(s) (e.g., hanging) or by the victim
responding. Viola Liuzzo and Rev.
James Reeb were called N-word lovers before they were murdered. Most recently James Anderson was
murdered in Mississippi and the young white perpetrator reportedly said,
"I ran that n****r over."
If the
American people were to conclude that white Republicans - not just conservative
Republicans - were actively working to defeat Barack Obama because of his race,
they would overwhelmingly reject the Republican Party, its candidates and
proposals, and understand more clearly a Republican strategy of blockage and
obstinacy.
The heart
and soul of "conservatism" is the South. When race was rampant, it was the solid Democratic
South. In today's
"post-racial" society it's the solid Republican South - minus the
African and Hispanic American congressional districts. But why would the poorest, least
educated, most ill-housed and most unhealthy region of the country be solidly
conservative? Conserving such poverty
seems unnatural. So what are the
people of the South conserving?
Clearly,
historically, the rich - be they slave-owners or possessors' of other wealth or
power - were conserving their privilege. They used the fear of blacks to manipulate whites and blacks politically
to keep them separated, and from rebelling and joining forces to fight their
mutual state of unemployment, poverty, lack of health care, housing and
education.
Poor
whites were not told the truth about the Civil War - that they were fighting to
protect the slave-owners' economic self-interest. Instead they were told they were fighting for states'
rights. Rather than join the civil
rights movement for social, economic and political equality for all in the
'60s, poor whites were told to stay away because African Americans were being
manipulated by "communists" and "socialists" like Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and now Obama.
So when
the first 15 Presidents avoided resolving the race issue the result was an
explosion, the American Civil War. And when white politicians know the American weakness on race, and
exploit it politically, we can never really get to the jobs discussion.
Dealing
with and getting beyond "Niggerhead" may actually be the key to
addressing the needs of the American people and unlocking a real discussion on
jobs.
