The browning of America

In the euphoria following President Obama’s election, we were told time and
time again by the intelligentsia that America had finally entered a
post-racial era. The man who was supposed to cool the planet and stem our
rising tides would also preside over a nation that had finally achieved Dr.
King’s vision to judge others by the content of their character rather than the
color of their skin.

Some 18 months later, the gleam has faded from the hope and change we were
promised. $3 trillion added to the deficit, an extremely unpopular healthcare
bill rammed through the Congress and constant hectoring by the president have
seen his approval ratings drop to the mid-40 percent approval range.

And yet opposition to Mr. Obama has curiously been framed now in issues of
black and white rather than legitimate policy disagreements. Consider Atlanta
Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia
Tucker’s rant from last week:

“Successful black and brown professionals have had to learn to be comfortable
in a sea of white faces, but most white Americans have not experienced the
reverse. When prognosticators were naive enough to believe Obama’s election
signaled the beginning of a post-racial era, it prompted something altogether
different: a backlash against the browning of America.”

That such idiocy could come from a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist tells you
everything you need to know about the diminished stature of the award. Where to
start?

For one, Americans of all races and ethnic backgrounds have to be comfortable
with one another in order to excel at their jobs. This has nothing to do with
racial identification. This isn’t Selma in the 1960s, this is America in the
21st century that just elected the first African-American president of the
United States.

Second, what on earth is she talking about regarding a “backlash against the
browning of America”? The Obama administration itself has repeatedly brought up
issues of race and inflamed rather than doused racial tensions.

Attorney General Holder informed us early in their term that we are a
“Nation of Cowards” on matters of race. Then the infamous beer summit
following the president’s characterization of a white police officer arresting
his friend Skip Gates as having “acted stupidly.” Then there is the
Department of Justice refusing to prosecute a clear-cut case of voter
intimidation against the New Black Panther party while the same DOJ decided to
sue both the state of Arizona and a courageous sheriff for seeking to enforce
the law regarding illegal immigration.

Unable to rally the county on the president’s policies and positions, his
cheerleaders in the media continue to trot out the race card to quell
legitimate opposition to “The One.” Americans are not engaged in a backlash
against the browning of America, they are engaged in a struggle to regain
control of the country that has lurched sharply to the left and a government
that is unresponsive and ignores those who elected them. Come November, the
chickens of the out-of-control Democrats and the media who enable them while
demonizing opponents as being ignorant racists will come home to roost.