It's Not an Aberration
By Sara Pentz
- Associated Press
– Associated Press
To most civilized human beings these comments broadcast by John Sylvester are so shockingly out of order that it is beyond comprehension why they were said. They represent the height of bottom-feeder slurs. They characterize Dr. Condoleezza Rice as a lackey of the Bush Administration. They seek to belittle her as a dunce, a yes-man, a liar and incapable of filling Colin Powell's shoes. Dr. Rice is the object of scorn and racist charges because she is not considered authentically black—that is, she is not seen as a black in the political tradition of liberalism. That's the meaning behind the euphemistic use of the word ‘authentic' when used in this context.
Dr. Rice is the main object of attack. The difference between Rice and Powell is a distinctly liberal politic. Powell is depicted as a man of immense integrity and stature because he's to the left of many in the Bush White House. He is portrayed by the left as an authentic African American precisely because of his views, not because of his remarkable record of accomplishments. Conversely, in spite of her own extraordinary resume, Rice is, according to the leftists, the one who sold-out to the conservative politic, and, therefore, is fair game as the object of vulgar contempt.
Dr. Condoleezza Rice’s resume is clearly outstanding. She became the National Security Advisor to President Bush in 2001. She was Provost of Stanford University, and as a professor of political science there, she won two of the highest teaching honors. At Stanford, she has been a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow of the Hoover Institution.
Her books include “Germany Unified and Europe Transformed” (1995) with Philip Zelikow, “The Gorbachev Er”a (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and “Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army” (1984).
She served in the elder Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and as a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military.
She was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco.
Dr. Rice earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the
Quite clearly, she cannot be criticized for her intellect!
It is critical to mention here that such outrageous comments as those made by John Sylvester, and others, are allowed to be stated in the United States because we adhere to the principle that anyone can say anything they want—except to advocate the intended overthrow of the government. Our freedoms protect us from prison when we speak insults such as those made by liberal radio personality Sylvester. This is what makes our country great. In many other countries you would be a dead duck within a matter of seconds if you criticized a governmental official in such a manner.
Liberal political cartoonists have joined the rush to denigrate Dr. Rice in a series of cartoons too vile to show here. They have produced drawings of her that can only be characterized as racist, patronizing, and grotesque. It is naked bigotry.
One such is Universal Press Syndicate cartoonist Ted Rall who has created a cartoon that depicts Ms. Rice proclaiming herself Bush's "House Nigga." A black man demands that Rice, "Hand over her hair straightener.” His t-shirt reads, "You're not white, stupid.” The Washington Post newspaper, among others, actually published this cartoon.
Conservative columnist (and minority) Michelle Malkin calls Rall “a very useful idiot,” saying, “…most on the Left attempt to conceal their liberal racism in the drapery of diversity and multiculturalism but not Rall…(he) is not the far Left fringe. He…reflects the closet thinking of mainstream media editors across the country and their mainstream liberal audiences. His work is reportedly carried in 140 newspapers.”
Sane men will ask, what provokes this kind of gutter language and graphic insult against the minorities of President Bush's cabinet? And why is there such an outpouring of deathly silence from black leaders and so-called principled Democrats across the country in response?
The people who write and speak these kinds of insults are incapable of arguing intellectually. They scream. They don't explain. They shriek. They don't debate. They disrupt. They don't listen. They are out of control in the same way the terrible two-year-old can be. But they demand we listen to them. They call it censorship when we don't care to do so. Theirs is the kind of language heard repeatedly from the lefties and the liberals, from Senator Kerry and the European press, throughout the recent presidential campaign. It is all unintelligible gibberish devoid of meaning.
This kind of trash is now gushing out of the mouths of American liberals and is passed on from liberal website to liberal website, newspaper-to-newspaper, without repudiation or remorse. It is prompted by the other half of the country who voted for Kerry as a vote against Bush. When they didn't win, they threw a tantrum, went into a deep blue funk and became so infuriated they allowed their emotions of hate to overrule sane argument. Their unchecked rage filled those who revel in it with a kind of perverse pleasure and, therefore, a false sense of power and security. But it has all backfired—as it has allowed the liberal's politics of racist hate to surface.
These rabid attacks come basically from these racists because they feel their ideas are threatened. Their slander is meant to be malicious and malevolent—intended to do harm to the object of their spitting and hissing. And while they miss that mark, the intent of the authors must be addressed.
For years, we have been told by liberals that this kind of hate is the sole province of the good ‘ol Southern white boys and a few dimwitted truckers. Their condescension was always so transparent. And while it may be the case that some folks have spewed their fair share of bigotry, the current denigrating epitaphs come straight out of the mouths of elitist liberals who consider themselves secular, sophisticated and superior—above the fray, so to speak. These are the same liberals who have for, at least, sixty years proclaimed themselves to be the protectors of minorities in this country.
Now the ugly truth is out.
These people don't care one whit about supporting minorities. They only care about manipulating the black vote to suit their liberal ends. And they care more about the power this gives them than they do the power a legitimate support might give to a black minority. Notice that blacks who voted for President Bush also came from regions of the country where they were freer from taxes and governmental regulations, allowing them to build a productive and secure life on their own.
It is quite clear that individual black leaders have also sold out their communities in order to amass their own kind of personal power. This is the real source of opposition to Dr. Rice. White Democrats know that she will not be a functionary for these racist Democrats. She is one tough principled cookie and a strong supporter of her President—one reason why she might be a Republican presidential candidate in 2008.
It's hardly news that liberal elites depict liberal blacks as paragons of virtue. Black conservatives, however, are portrayed as traitors to their race—Uncle Toms, backsliders and ingrates. Liberal blacks are feted and honored—the Jesse Jacksons of the world are coddled and praised by white liberals. No one dare challenge their statements, thinking or behavior. By promulgating this pattern, naming it politically correct, liberals have been able to manipulate blacks over the years in order to solidify their control over them—as well as control over conservatives of every color.
To understand this phenomenon think 1960s Black Panthers—Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver— who became honored guests at a cultural phenomenon of the 1970s that seriously impacted the course of black civil rights history. It was labeled ‘radical chic,’ this single event. It was a cocktail party held at the
During the late 1970s and early 1980s it became fashionable for these so-called elites to delve into the more radical aspects of American politics. Extremists, especially those on the far left, were glamorized in the press. Even the most revolutionary blacks who had plotted the bombings of police buildings in
The event gave sanction to the association between liberals and their alliance with many blacks and whites who eventually became criminals in the radical civil rights movement. It was a move to capture the alliance of the black radicals and solidify an allegiance. Beneath it was the utter contempt by these liberals for their black counterparts. The chic socializing was a gimmick used to disguise the liberal's motives. This ‘radical chic' party was wrapped in an air of sophistication, but it was pompous pretension at it lowest.
Today, the slurs, instigated by Sylvester, Rall and their ilk against Dr. Rice and other conservative blacks, are so blatantly over-the-top that they miss their mark and become meaningless vulgarities—impotent at their core. Ms. Malkin has an interesting answer to this perverse and open hostility toward Rice and Powell. She posits that liberals deride them because, they say, the two cabinet members do not support the real interests and values of the black community.
But this is utter nonsense as the statistics demonstrate. In fact, Rice stands for the same values that are currently emerging from the black community—as seen also in new voting patterns for this year's presidential election. Statistics show that 53% of the black community opposes gay marriage. 60% support school vouchers. 56% of blacks oppose abortion. These views place blacks directly in the political sphere of mainstream conservative thought.
Compare the actual values of the black community with the values of black political leaders and it becomes clear that they are diametrically opposed to the values of the larger black community. However, these same black leaders do hold values that are in perfect accord with white Democrats who support abortion and gay marriage while opposing school vouchers.
Look closely and it is evident that racist-thinking liberals have inadvertently outed themselves. They have created their own magnificent implosion. Look closely and it becomes evident that these liberals are allowing black people to be verbally and graphically assaulted by liberal white people and no one—absolutely none of them—is taking issue. It is the height of hypocrisy and it is appalling.
Based on their actions of the last few decades, the left's words and deeds are now revealing the contempt and hatred they have always had for blacks—many of whom are now escaping the liberals' grasp. This is not an aberration. It is a trend. As well, it is the shocking truth that might just offer blacks their rightful status as individuals of intelligence and promise in a society that is open to people of all colors.
