Replies

"Protected, my ass,” he said. “I spent days in the smoking room, days of my life in the smoking room complaining about how I wasn't protected. Protected by whom?”

Days spent complaining he wasn't protected? Oh, please. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? Is this supposed to explain why he did what he did?

Aside from my excessive schadenfreude at the continuing dicomfiture of Howell Raines, I am thinking that this is obviously a lesson in race relations.

Because of the excessive emphasis on victimology and the emphasis on how racist white Americans are, civil rights leaders have done a disservice to the people they say they are helping.

It is my impression that some black people feel that all whites are inherently racist. They view everything through that prism. Jayson apparently is one of these unfortunates.

Viewed through this prism, any action of his superiors was suspect. When they assigned him a story, they were being patronizing, or they were setting him up for a fall. When passed over for an assignment, he felt he was being discriminated against. When invited out for a drink, he was the token. When people asked his opinion, they were trying to get something on him.

It is a sad way to go through life, but it is directly attributable to the left's harping on race for the last 30 or so years.

I don't know if there is a solution to this, and I would welcome black feepers to tell me if I am over-emphasizing this attitude. I do not think it universal, but I do think that susceptible people are harmed and there are lots of Jaysons out there, in various careers. It isn't that they aren't smart or talented; it is that they have been emotionally handicapped by the messages they have been fed.

This is not to say that there aren't plenty of white racists, by the way. I run into them myself from time to time.