Another message from voters in last week’s election: Time to retire the race card

Another message from voters in last week’s election: Time to retire the race card

As Jeff Dunetz intimates in an article on the struggles for leadership within the bruised Democratic party, last week’s presidential election provided a wakeup call for the Left. If they are willing to listen, one of the messages voters delivered is to stop playing the race card. We’ll see if liberals are wise enough to heed the message, but in the immediate aftermath of their crushing defeat at the polls, they are appear to be standing pat.

Witness an article at CNN’s website by Isaac Bailey, who is identified as “primary columnist for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach” S.C. The piece carries the unfortunate (for author and publisher) headline “Why we can’t forget the racism of this campaign.” The content is as wearily predictable as the title. It opens with a sob story, likely apocyphal, about a waiter who, like Bailey, is black and was reportedly hailed by a white customer as “Boy.”

This anecdote is used as a bridge to the article’s main theme, encapsulated in this paragraph:

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

That was a few months ago. His was one of many stories that came back to me after election night, because it is illustrative of what many people of color are feeling as the words “President-elect Donald Trump” seep into their consciousness.

I could do a tit-for-tat here and provide a look back to 2008 and to the ominous feelings many on the Right had about the election of an untested novice who had been raised by Marxists, attended a black nationalist church, and threatened to convert America into a European-style social democracy, but that would lead to charges of racism: The only reason any voter might have opposed Barack Obama would have been because of the color of his skin.

Wherein lies the rub. Non-liberals are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

But with the election last week, the tide appears to be turning. You see this sea change not in Isaac Bailey’s musings but in the comments following his article. I didn’t peruse all of them because there are close to 3,000, but the first four seem to capture the tone of the thread. Here they are:

To the Author, I think there are a couple truths about America that came out in this election. First, most Americans can recognize racism and shun it. Second, most talking about racism has actually entered the realm of mentally unhealthy obsession. If you are an adult in America you are going to be called names, you are going to get manipulated at some point, and someone is eventually going to throw you under the bus. If you can not handle certain phrases, nor can you openly address them, then that is your issue not a political issue.

Racism will never disappear as long as race is the dominate label we use to see society around us. Articles like this are a soft form of racism, that only agitates healing wounds to the advantage of the media and politicians

CNN is a comical read. Everyone is r a c I s t if they voted for Trump. You L I b s should be a s h a m e d of yourselves. P a t h e t I c P O S

Nobody believes CNN is a news station except you. The one sided reporting is laughable just like you calling yourself a news station.

It is doubly interesting to see these comments at CNN, which, I noted yesterday, has picked up the anemic theme that the election was lost because of “fake news” reporting by websites like the one you are currently logged in to. As I also observed, CNN has little room to cast stones over inauthenticity of reporting.

As for the race issue, people of color and liberals in general are free to continue to play the race card, but they do so at their own peril.

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

Comments

For your convenience, you may leave commments below using Disqus. If Disqus is not appearing for you, please disable AdBlock to leave a comment.