Another point
included in the article was “White Privilege” where there is an imagined
dialogue with the Black community where the writer asks, “Do you people
believe that society just [merely] hands everything to White people because of
their color?” The short answer is, “No we do not.” I found that mock query to
be the most insulting and infuriating part of the entire article, and betray a
kind of intellectual dishonesty because I doubt that any Black person with an
ounce of common sense believes such nonsense- let alone have ever thought it,
or said it and meant it in any serious way. Following that point Mr. Johnson
includes the rejoinder about Blacks who decry
the discrimination they face in housing, bank loans, employers,
landlords, public accommodations, etc. “except” when under-qualified minorities
are hired over more qualified Whites due to government-sponsored affirmative
action initiatives [quotas, set asides, or preferential treatment programs]. What
about the many White females who benefitted from such programs to gain
employment in non-traditional male-dominated industries/occupations as well as
allowing them to attend college? Not only that, but hardly anyone [White] wants
to acknowledge the numbers of Blacks who were denied jobs or promotions when
they were just as qualified, if not even more so than their White counterparts.
Since in his thinking, ‘affirmative action’ means “incompetence” then it must
apply to every White person who receives government assistance, because they
did not have the ability or the resources to lift themselves up by their own
bootstraps.
Here is the real
‘zinger’ in the article when Mr. Johnson mentions his minority friends, many of
them military veterans; a “Band of Brothers” who despite their color, were
equal in status because of the job-[I wonder does he really believe that].
It gets deeper because, drumroll please, they had the economic opportunity or ability
to live and work in the same places and community. I guess the writer
never heard of “redlining,” spatial housing segregation, restrictive covenants
or the “6 percent RULE” where if more than a certain number of Blacks or racial
minorities move into a White neighborhood FOR SALE signs spring up in front
yards of homeowners as Whites move to another ‘Whitetopia.’ As a final thought,
the only thing I am in agreement with is that American oligarchs have the
working classes, especially those in the bottom 80% fighting each other [White
and non-White] over the table scraps of limited resources, and who will work
for the cheapest labor cost, and along with shrinking benefits.
So, to reiterate my
earlier disdain, the notion that America doesn’t have a race problem but rather
an economic or class-based one is ludicrous and ignores any rational experience
with reality. As a last point, if America is post-racial or race neutral then
why has Barack Obama, president of the United States been called the “N Word”
not only in a few newspapers but by a couple members of Congress as well.
Does America have a
race problem- as Sarah Palin used to say, “You betcha!”
776 Commerce St Apt B11
Tacoma, WA 98402
June 26, 2015
robertrandle51@yahoo.com
