A recurring theme out there in the political atmosphere about Barack Obama becoming president is the idea that we live in a PC, guilt addled culture that was willing to elect an unqualified affirmative action candidate for its attendant history making feel good effect.This meme never fails to tick me off. Every time I hear it or see it expressed in writing in one form or another, I think to myself "Dear God, please stop with the whining". Its enough (almost) to make one yearn for the days of open and unabashed hostility between white and black as a more open and honest time. 2040 has not arrived yet, there are still way more of you than us. If affirmative action is such an anathema, just outlaw it or better yet, simply stop doing it. I resent the resentment about such things, though if I'm being fair I have to admit black people had a hand in creating it. We share some of the blame, as race hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson have created small, self serving industries out of exploiting white guilt and defensiveness about race. We've been willing accomplices often enough.
If I get analytical about it, then I have to ask, if we are a guilt ridden PC culture, what is it that white America is guilty about? What is the guilt that Sharpton and Jackson exploit for money again and again? They keep drawing from this well and each time I see it happen, I'm wondering what underground source are they tapping?
What is it that makes the city of New Haven deny white firefighters promotion because a few black test takers didn't make the cut? The test subject matter was known beforehand. I presume that the same books the white fire fighters studied were available to the black firefighters. In the absence of some relevant information that I'm missing, at first blush, it just does not make sense that the city of New Haven would behave so completely unreasonably merely because black firefighters complained, legal catch 22 or no.
You can't put it all on us. What is it at work in the psyche of white America in 2009 that makes the New Haven case possible? Obama is easy to understand (white guilt did not elect him, simple as that), but the New Haven case, that makes much less sense. Can you explain it? I can't.
