Rice and Buchanan on Race

Monica Roberts posted these words from Condoleezza Rice' March 28 Washington Times interview. She was asked about the Rev. Wright hoopla and Sen. Obama's speech on race. Well, these comments from Condi surprised some of her conservative buddies.

Secretary Rice said:

"I think it was important that he (Obama) gave it for a whole host of reasons,"

The United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding.

Black Americans were a founding population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding.

As a result, descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that.

That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today.

America doesn't have an easy time dealing with race, and added that her own father, grandmother and great-grandmother had endured terrible humiliations growing up in the segregated south and yet they still loved America.

What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them —and that's our legacy."

Now, FOX News pundit Pat Buchanan.
Mr. Buchanan opens his dialogue on race with a long response entitled,
A Brief for Whitey posted on his site 3/21/08.

First on Rev Wright:

"How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about "the U.S. of K.K.K. America," and howled, "God damn America!"
My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright's statements were "controversial," and "divisive," and "racially charged," reflecting a "distorted view of America."

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation."

Pat obviously didn't listen to Wright's speeches or know his bible.
"God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme." (the second sentence in Rev. Wright's sermon is a direct paraphrase from the Old Testament when God warned the Israelites to not be so haughty as to think they were as powerful as God.)

Pat continues, leaving out Obama's acknowledgement of white resentments and black responsibilities.

"Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

The "white community," said Barack, must start "acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds ... ."

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The "white community" must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with "ladders of opportunity" that were "unavailable" to Barack's and the Rev. Wright's generations.

What is wrong with Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Was "white racism" really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said -- that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks - with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new “ladders of opportunity” for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for “deserving” white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

Well now, how 'bout that. I could tell him where his gratitude is but I won't because I am a proponent for this dialogue on race in our country. I do appreciate his honesty.
His long response is proof positive why America needs to have this out.
Buchanan takes Obama's speech as a lecture to whites rather than a challenge to Americans that will benefit all of us.
So, he concludes that Barack Obama's speech is just another black hustle. Black Americans are a bunch of immoral beings that have only thanked white Americans for all their generousity and kindness by swindling, looting, raping, robbing, and stealing opportunities and jobs from them. He uses the invitation to dialogue to fall back on old stereotypes, feed fear, and advance his political ideology. The sad thing is that Pat Buchanan actually believes his distorted truths. He also seems to think he is speaking for the white race.