IS IT RACE BAITING?

Is it race baiting if you disagree with the policies of the country’s first black President?

Well, if you listen to certain people or groups, especially one’s who claim to represent the black and Latino communities; the answer is “YES”. Can you imagine that?

Our country, whose constitution is envied by the vast number of freedom loving people around the world, has, as part of that constitution, the right of free speech (the 1st Amendment). To criticize people for exercising that right of protesting the policies of anyone in elected office, including the President, is an affront to all law abiding citizens whether they are black, white, brown, yellow or whatever. Being of a certain race, color, ethnic background, gender or anything, doesn’t leave you immune from criticism about “What” you stand for, your policies, or your actions. We all have that right and to be vilified, unjustly, for exercising that right peacefully, is a disgrace and it is un-American.

We have a recent case of the national chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., condemning the Tea Party for alleged racism, without a shred of “real” evidence to substantiate that inflammatory charge. First off, the Tea Party is not an organized party in the strict sense of that word. It is an amalgamation of concerned citizens who are protesting the actions of their government and its policies. They couldn’t care less if the President is black; the vast majority is against his governance and his radical policies that he is trying to shove down the throats of its citizens. I would bet my life that if it was John Kerry as President espousing the same policies as Obama, the same protests would be taking place around the country. Race has nothing to do with it.

When the “racial arsonists” get on their soap box and condemn the overwhelmingly peaceful, patriotic people protesting against their government by calling them racists, it shows that these agitators have lost the argument and fall back on the time-worn tactic of race-baiting. It seems like the once highly regarded N.A.A.C.P. has now joined the chorus of “grievance hustlers” like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Malik Shabazz (of the New Black Panther Party) in stirring up racial tensions when it was assumed that the election of the first black President would move us toward a post-racial nation. Well, it seems like the opposite is now taking place in our country, and the President is complicit in it by his actions and rhetoric. He is fanning the flames of racial tension.

In the words of that noted black columnist/author/commentator, Dr. Thomas Sowell, “People on the left (including those mentioned above) want the right to impose their idea of what is good for society on others – a right that they vehemently deny to those whose idea of what is good for society differs from their own”.

So, the answer to the question posed at the beginning is “YES” it is race-baiting, and all people of goodwill should oppose those un-American acts perpetrated by the self-proclaimed practitioners of tolerance who have now become intolerant. To single out and condemn a group for rare instances of objectionable behavior (if it wasn’t already staged by a radical liberal plant at the meeting), and then tar-brushing the entire group as racists, is an insult to all fair-minded Americans. In all the Tea Parties held around the country, over the past year, no arrests for disorderly conduct, no riots, no car burnings or store window breakings, and a minimal amount of trash left behind, is the legacy of the Tea Party. This is not what the racial arsonists are trying to convey. Shame on them and their media flunky’s for engaging in this self-serving obnoxious behavior for partisan political gain.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann