Is the Race Issue Tops on Obama Agenda?
If one of the expectations of those who voted for Barack Obama as President was more talk about race they are getting it. Careful what you wish for could be the suggestion they missed. Rather than introduce a continued discussion of meaningful dialogue the main players may accurately be described as the antagonists. From the campaign and Barack Obama characterizing small town America as clinging to guns or religion to the contrived outrage over the NY Post stimulus bill cartoon to Eric Holder referring to the US as a nation of cowards the ‘discussion’ is still missing. Diatribe is not discussion.
The Obama Administration being described as the amateur hour is becoming more and more realistic. And the report of another fall in approval rating of 5 points is no surprise. All the fawning and hype of the past campaign has delivered a net result of a stimulus package that embraces failed liberal policies from the past, a string of failed nominations, a procession of tax cheats, a lack of transparency and other broken promises and the additional annoyance of being called a racist by the ‘top dogs’ in the Obama Adminstration.
While the links below are a few of the many available they were selected intentionally. The New York Post ‘apology’ echoes the sentiment published here earlier. In other words stop making everything about race. The two other links are interesting based on titles used. CNN mentions Holder’s comments being blasted and praised while a Chicago paper offers the sound bite phrase and the fact the US AG is the first black in that office.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
N.Y. Post apologizes for chimpanzee cartoon
Fri Feb 20, 2009 4:42am GMT
By Edith Honan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Post apologized on Thursday to those offended by an editorial cartoon that critics said was racist because it likened President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee.
The newspaper acknowledged that the cartoon published on Wednesday had drawn controversy because African-Americans and others saw it as a depiction of Obama.
“This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize,” the paper said in an editorial on its website headlined “That Cartoon.”
“It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period,” the paper
Holder ‘nation of cowards’ remarks blasted, praised
From Ed Hornick
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) — America is “a nation of cowards” when discussing race. That sentiment from the country’s first African-American attorney general, Eric Holder, has stirred up pundits, bloggers and readers.
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we — I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month.
He said that Americans are afraid to talk about race, adding that “certain subjects are off-limits and that to explore them risks at best embarrassment and at worst the questioning of one’s character.”
And that impression of race in America has set off a firestorm of criticism.
U.S. a ‘nation of cowards’ on race, 1st black attorney general says
Holder’s speech signals more active Justice Department on civil rights issues
By Josh Meyer | Washington Bureau
February 19, 2009
WASHINGTON — For the past eight years, the Justice Department and the Bush administration were relatively quiet on the issue of race and its place within the social fabric of America and the enforcement of civil rights and justice.
But on Wednesday, Eric Holder, newly confirmed as the nation’s first black attorney general, issued a call to action to Americans in and out of government, saying the United States is “a nation of cowards” on race relations that needs to finally—and urgently—begin confronting the issue before it polarizes the country even further.