Historical Firsts (and Seconds)

Commentary Magazine ^ | August 28, 2008 | Abe Greenwald

[Jbny]

How many times can the most important speech on race in America be made in one year? Probably one. Even though Barack Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for president on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and even though you can practically see the goose-bumps in the mainstream media’s stories about Obama’s “march into history,” tonight’s acceptance speech will largely not be about race in America. This is because Obama has already squandered his oratorical share of American racial history on a speech vouching for a delusional race-huckster from Chicago named Jeremiah Wright. That’s a sad reflection on a night that, frankly, is goosebump-worthy for anyone who believes in the ideals of our nation’s founding.

[skeeter]

I have a dream that one day the media in this country will stop fixating on RACE.

I've had all the talk of gender, sexual preference, and RACE I can stand.

[Dilbert San Diego]

In fact, doesn’t the fact that a black man has become the presidential nominee of a major political party itself indicate how far race relations have come in this country?

Doesn’t the fact that over 10% of Congress is black indicate the same?

Doesn’t the fact that black governors have been elected in majority white states indicate the same?

And you could make similar observations about the growth of the black middle-class, as an indicator of how race relations have greatly improved in the past 40 to 50 years.

[skeeter]

We have commercials commemorating the 40 anniversary or the Fair Housing Act running locally overtly criticising predominately white neighborhoods and glorifying, by comparison, 'diverse' neighborhoods.

I cannot believe this was the original intent of the FHA, but in this current environment too much 'white' equals undesirable.

In other words we've come full circle. Its time it all ended.

[ncfool]