Rice on race: It matters and always has

The Huntsville Time ^ | November 22, 2002 | Dave Person

[where's_the_Outrage?]

NASHINGTO- Teddy Roosevelt, sitting proudly on his oil-W painted horse in the White House room with his name, must have been horrified at Dr. Condoleezza Rice.

As President Bush's national security advisor, she should have known better. She wasn't supposed to say that. Not in a White House peopled with conservative Republicans. Not to a group of black columnists representing major newspapers from around the country.

Not in the Roosevelt Room.

''Race matters in America,'' Rice said. ''It has, it always has. Maybe there will be a day when it doesn't, but I suspect that it will for a long time to come.''

For the record, Rice didn't stutter or backtrack at the end of her interview with the Trotter Group. Instead, she did something that black conservatives aren't known for: She publicly acknowledged the reality and validity of the race question.

Now before you right-wingers get your boxers in a bunch, take a breath. She didn't go Al Sharpton on us, pledging to support reparations. She didn't say that Bush would apologize for the U.S. government's role in the slave trade.

But Rice did increase her credibility with us by affirming her place in the continuing cultural and political struggle that black people in the United States are engaged in - and she did it on her own terms.

Black conservatives, take note: It's OK to admit that race is still a problem in this country. You don't have to sink into denial. The sky won't fall down. The ground won't swallow you up.

It doesn't mean that you have to join Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, take Congresswoman Maxine Waters to lunch or join the NAACP.

It's safe to take your heads out of the sand and face the truth: While the United States has made tremendous progress on race, it still has a long way to go.

The December 2002/January 2003 edition of Savoy magazine has an extensive article on a class-action discrimination lawsuit that has been filed against Xerox. The plaintiffs contend that sales territories are segregated, promotions are race-based and harassment can take the form of hanging nooses being displayed in some Xerox facilities.

Xerox denies any discrimination, but there is plenty of reason to doubt its denial. According to Savoy writer Marjorie Whigham-Desir, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dismisses about 80 percent of the complaints lodged by citizens against employers believed to be discriminatory. But Whigham-Desir reported that the EEOC has affirmed the group and individual complaints against Xerox, finding that ''reasonable cause exists to believe'' the charges that the plaintiffs have made.

And in case you Bill Clinton-haters out there are wondering, this is the 2002 Bush EEOC, not that old, tired Clinton-era model.

So maybe Rice isn't alone in the Bush White House. Maybe the GOP is slowing veering away from the Republican Party of 1964, which dealt a fatal blow to race relations during the GOP Convention led by Sen. Barry Goldwater's Cow Palace Republicans in San Francisco. These Republicans were so hostile toward blacks that Hall-of-Famer and convention attendee Jackie Robinson said: ''I now believe I know how it felt to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany.''

At least we can take comfort in knowing that the Bush administration, whatever it's other faults may be, doesn't buy into the lies that have blocked qualified blacks from serving at the highest levels of government. Certainly, it's a good sign that Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell hold two of the top four slots in the Bush White House, a point not lost on Rice.

''I think it says to people that there aren't boundaries in which black Americans are not supposed to play,'' she said. ''I think that's an extremely important message to the rest of the world.

''I am African American and proud of it,'' Rice said later. ''I wouldn't have it any other way. I do not believe that it has limited who I am or what I can become.''

Conservative or not, I can respect that. And frankly, it's easier to respect people with whom you disagree when you know you share an appreciation for your common experiences. And so under Teddy Roosevelt's watchful, if skeptical gaze, Condoleezza Rice - a fan of Motown, Clarence ''Gatemouth'' Brown and Kool and the Gang as well as Brahms - gave and gained a lot of respect last week.

David Person's column appears each Friday on the Commentary page. E-mail: davidpe@htimes.com; phone 532-4362.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Do you really think those 33% are all telling the truth to the pollsters? I don't!

[mlmr]

My beautiful babies are doing very well. Homeschooled and gifted and talented. My oldest just broke the Mommy Barrier, she is now officially taller than me! No altruism here... I wanted a family and healthy black and biracial babies are available, easy to adopt and ... what can I say...God is good...

[wardaddy]

It's a shame that the CRA of 1964 has been subsequently exploited like it has since it's enaction. One can argue the good things it brought about like enfranchisement but the aftermath has been considerably mixed and has led to Balkanizing, the cult of victimhood, the Great Society boondoggles, race exploiters, the destruction of the once fairly nuclear black family.....the list goes on....like Pandora's box.

I don't pretend to have the "answer", I just know we're all in trouble now.

[mlmr]

Yes. I do. There are a lot of people who open up their lives to me when they see my family. All over the country I get stopped at malls by old ladies who dig out their wallets and show the pictures of their new grandchild or niece and mixed race spouses. They are delighted and proud of the new family members. I think that the 33% is not evenly distributed nationally. But it is there.

[nopardons]

You want " personal " history, to prove what a moron you are ? Okay, I'll oblige. When I was three, my two best friends were a black girl and a girl of Chinese ancestry. Our summer home was down the block from Roy Campanella and his stepson ( who was blacker than than most American Negros ) was one of my best friends and my dancing partner,at the parties we had. No one, not a single person, in our group and at that age [ 15, 16, 17 ]we all went to the beach together and no one turned a hair. We didn't even think of race and he wasn't in our group, because Campy had been famous.

I was SO pro-Civil Rights, that I had wanted to go down there and do something, but my mother wouldn't let me and being a full time college student, I didn't have my own money. Not remember , nor know about what the Civil Rights moveement was ? YOU'RE JUST TOO DAMNED FULL OF YOURSELF, YOU EGOMANIAC !

I'm PREDJUDICED ; you bet I am ... against idots, cretins, and self deluded morons. If any of those shoes fit ( and they do ), please don't complain. ;^)

[nopardons]

BRAVO !

[vbmoneyspender]

all that was needed was ensuring that blacks had the franchise. Jim Crow focused on the vote because the Southern Democrats knew that once blacks got the vote, segregation would be over because politicians would no longer be able to ignore the concerns of blacks. Beyond ensuring that people had the right to vote, all of the other laws that were passed in the name of civil rights during the '60s were unnecessary.

[Ol'Grey Head]

To tell you the truth I grew up in a neighborhood that was 80% Hispanic, and went to a school that was 80% Hispanic. When I was 12 years old the cholos from the highschool would have fun running us grade school kids off the road with their cars. While I got through it all okay, I wouldn't want my kid to have to live in a neighborhood dominated by dark skinned bigots.

[wardaddy]

I know someone who just spent 2 years and many bribes to adopt an abandoned Romanian girl of nearly 3 now. The odd thing was that the whole time they were struggling to get the Romanian child, meanwhile they found a Guatemalan baby boy of a few months old and as soon as they fetched him and had given up hope on the Romanian child, the papers came through. Now they have both at the same time of arrival more or less. They have their hands full.

I do as well with a 2 week old and a 2 year old....both of course in diapers. I've got 2 daughters (ages 13 and 14) by my ex-wife who spend about 1/4 of their time with me. This may be it. I'm 45 and my wife's 38. If we want anymore, I'll need to make some more money ...and soon. It's expensive.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

If God doesn't care about race, why did God make races? Or did we all jsut evolve as a bunch of electrons descneded from a monkey???

Are you saying it is racist to think God had different purposes in mind for different races when he made them, and that He didn't intend for humans to go about trifling with them by uniting them again physically in anything as they tried at Babel, but only to unite in the Christian Faith?

But wait! Isn't that what God clearly did with Israel by singling them out as His Chosen People, and ordering them to remain seperate from all other peoples? Doesn't that make the Bible the story of a racist God and a racist people (at least up to the time of Christ! so did God change in your view, and we have a "God of the Old Testament" and a "God of the New Testament"?) who refused to mix with others and were forced by their leaders to put away their strange wives AND CHILDREN when they did, like Ezra made them do (that would be Chapters 9 and 10 of Ezra).

Oh, and try taking Acts 17.26-27 out for a test-spin on St. Paul.

Your Christian teaching regarding race is a post-1850's fad. It has no real basis in anything Christians believed before that advent of Unitarianism and Universalism.

The the Apostles accepted these truths is easily proved by the various and sundry diverse Christian Rites they created to fit each culture - the Latin, the Coptic, the Syraic, the Byzantine, the Ethiopic, the Chaldeaic, the Armenian, the Indo-Malabar, the Gallic, the Mozarabic, etc. - each rite in the Church specifically created to suit the temperment and needs of that people. And the Church followed this system for centuries, creating along the way ever more new rites as needed, such as the Slavonic.

Much of the world's problems today are from Liberals trying to pretend everybody is all equal and the same, and therefore forcibly smothering out anything that smacks of differences because those difference might make someone feel bad since differences lead to judgements of better and worse. The extremist Catholic Latin Rite partisans are among the worst offenders in this regard.

[wardaddy]

I agree but alas, it's become a whole nother animal now and has made dependable high octane fuel for the Dems.

How we get out of this morass is not going to be quick or easy.

[mlmr]

Since I am the World's Oldest Mother, I adopted my last baby at 44 I was delighted at the ease of my adoptions. We have been very blessed. I remember life with a two and a baby. I still miss havign a baby in the house, but not much. My youngest is now five and we are going to travel this year for the first time in 13 years!

[185JHP]

Thank you. FReegards

[Dr. Frank fan]

She wasn't supposed to say that. Not in a White House peopled with conservative Republicans. Not to a group of black columnists representing major newspapers from around the country. Not in the Roosevelt Room. ''Race matters in America,'' Rice said. ''It has, it always has. Maybe there will be a day when it doesn't, but I suspect that it will for a long time to come.''

What the h**l is this columnist talking about? Why isn't "Rice" "supposed" to say that? I agree that race "matters" in America, and that it always has, and that it will for a long time to come. And I'm a conservative. Where's the contradiction? The columnist thinks there's a contradiction but doesn't say why. Perhaps because he's a biased idiot.

Instead, she did something that black conservatives aren't known for: She publicly acknowledged the reality and validity of the race question.

More bulls**t. Since when aren't black conservatives "known for" acknowledging the reality of race? (Never mind "the race question", I have no idea WTF "the race question" is....)

She didn't say that Bush would apologize for the U.S. government's role in the slave trade.

Didn't Clinton already do that anyway? So, water under the bridge.

But Rice did increase her credibility with us by affirming ....

Who's "us"? Idiotic, ignorant colunists? Rice's credibility was already sky-high with me.

Black conservatives, take note: It's OK to admit that race is still a problem in this country. You don't have to sink into denial. The sky won't fall down. The ground won't swallow you up.

Condescending columnists, take note: writing ignorant crap like this only makes you sound stupid.

These Republicans were so hostile toward blacks that Hall-of-Famer and convention attendee Jackie Robinson said: ''I now believe I know how it felt to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany.''

Oh, and if Jackie Robinson said this, then it necessarily must have been an accurate reflection of reality. The fact that Jackie Robinson (a famous baseball player) made this quote proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that being black in America in 1964 was just like being a Jew in Hitler's Germany.

After all, he was a ballplayer.

At least we can take comfort in knowing that the Bush administration, whatever it's other faults may be, doesn't buy into the lies that have blocked qualified blacks from serving at the highest levels of government.

Yeah, like the lies that almost blocked Clarence Thomas from serving in the Supreme Court, for example. (Oh, I suspect the columnist wasn't talking about that qualified black.)

And so under Teddy Roosevelt's watchful, if skeptical gaze,

I still don't even get this guy's original point, why would Teddy be "skeptical"? He's really reaching to try to find irony where there is none.

[wardaddy]

Well I guess if Hitlery had gone thru with her musings and I assume articial insemination to have another child a few years back then you would have unfortunately lost that title of World's Oldest Mom.

Regards

[vbmoneyspender]

I think you are going to see in about 30 years that the whole black/white racial issue has gone out the window. It is already starting to happen. Michael Barone has written about this issue by comparing the black community to the Irish during the second half of the 19th century. During that time, the Irish were generally despised by Protestant Americans, and Irish-Americans largely returned the favor. A funny thing happened though as Irish-Americans became prosperous. As that happened, they also become more Republican in their outlook to the point that nowadays the enmity between Catholics and Protestants in this country is largely a relic of the past. The same thing is going to happen as blacks become more prosperous. As they do, they will become more Republican in their outlook and certainly much less willing to listen to race-baiters like Jesse and Al Sharpton. Every immigrant group that comes to the United States goes through the same process. In this regard, blacks are no different than the Irish, the Germans, the Poles and the Italians. It is just human nature. When you become more prosperous, you become much less willing to give up your independece and your God-given freedoms.

[mlmr]

LOL. True, but I still would be World's Oldest Mom Without a Crusty, Black, Pansuit!

[Skywalk]

I'm multiracial.

I make all kinds of generalizations about groups without neglecting the role individuality plays. Far more people intermarry than you suggest and are quite comfortable with their choices. The numbers vary depending on the race/sex coupling, but it is obvious that large segments of the population agree with you not at all.

Preferences are not a bad thing to have, not necessarily a good thing either, as it can blind us to the beauty of a more suitable mate because of skin color or nose shape. Some men and women prefer something a little different than what they are, for whatever reason. Others, like me, are fine with any kind of ethnicity, provided they are attractive, compatible and good.

[wardaddy]

I'm not as optimistic. I see the black underclass growing and entrenching itself at a much faster rate than the black middle class. The same goes for white trash of which we have aplenty here in Nashville.

And they are joining forces so to speak and imitating one anothers worst habits at an incredible rate here.

Sorry....I hate to be so pessimistic. I look around at what passes for our combined culture these days....it ain't pretty.

Anyhow, I'm to bed. BTW, I'm not actually a middle aged southern white reactionary.....I just play one on Free Republic...

Regards.

[wardaddy]

That's a "crusty, black, gang of four looking, pantsuit" Mom!