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Honest Questions for Eric Holder
Posted By Jack Kerwick On July 17, 2014 @ 12:45 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments
While being interviewed recently by ABC News’ Pierre Thomas, Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his belief that he and Barack Obama have been subjected to a measure of “vehemence” unlike that with which other public figures have had to reckon.
Anyone who’s been alive for more than a few years doesn’t need this spelled out for them, but Holder couldn’t resist the impulse to make explicit the point at which he’s always driving: For Obama’s and Holder’s critics who are always “talking about taking their country back,” there is “a certain racial component,” “a racial animus,” that animates them.
To put it more bluntly, Holder is accusing his opponents of being a bunch of “racists.”
Of course, no one should be in the least bit surprised by this. Holder, like his boss, has always been a “Johnny One-Note” when it comes to the issue of race. But rather than go on the defensive, as whites generally and white conservatives always do, let us instead pose some questions to the AG.
First, by “racial animus” you presumably mean “racism.” But what does this mean, Mr. Holder? In spite of—or maybe because of—the ease with this term is hurled about, “racism” has come to mean all things to all people: Adolph Hitler, Nazis, Klansmen, Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, John Wayne, Southerners, Germans, American police officers and military personnel, slave masters and abolitionists, the Union and the Confederacy, America’s Founders, elderly whites, middle class whites, our judicial system, our political arrangements, academia, Hollywood, “the media,” and so forth and so on, have all been accused of “racism.”
However, as we say, if everyone is “racist,” then no one is “racist.” Or, if you will, if “racism” means anything and everything, then it means nothing.
Yet maybe, Mr. Holder, by “racist” you have in mind simply someone who dislikes black people, like yourself and the President, simply and solely because they are black. Given the context of your comments, I suspect that this is probably your meaning.
The unanimously acknowledged “father” of modern philosophy, Rene Descartes, identified as an axiom of reason the proposition that “something can’t come from nothing.” And since, sir, you and those of your ilk are forever looking for “root causes” whenever it comes to accounting for the dysfunctional conduct of which America’s “ghettoes” are ridden, I am inclined to think that you too believe it is self-evident that from nothing, nothing comes.
So, if, as you’re so certain, your critics dislike you and Mr. Obama only because you both are black, answer me this: From whence springs this sentiment of theirs? Why would anyone, white or otherwise, dislike black people? In other words, what are the “root causes” of white “racism?”
Bear in mind, sir, that the stock replies—“That’s just how white ‘racists’ were raised;” “Whites entertain ‘racist’ stereotypes about blacks,” etc.—are alike viciously question-begging (to say nothing of sounding “stereotypical” themselves). Each in its own way simply rephrases the claim that whites are “racist.”
And if you resolve, Mr. Attorney General, to concede that some of these negative “stereotypes” about blacks do indeed have a basis in reality but are nevertheless a “legacy” of white “racism,” please note that, once more, you beg the question by restating your original assertion: whites are/were “racist.”
It’s ok, though, if you can’t answer this query Mr. Holder. If I was a betting man I’d bet my house that never, ever have you had to give it any thought at all. Of real logical axioms like that identified by Descartes’ I’m sure you couldn’t care less. What you do care about, however, and care about more than anything else, is the proposition that whites are “racists” and blacks are unqualified victims. This you treat as a first principle of reason.
And this brings me to my next question: It’s true, isn’t it Mr. Holder, that you like crying “racism” precisely because blacks are widely portrayed (by people like yourself) as victims?
Contrary to what many of your critics claim, I for one most definitely do not believe that you charge them with “racism” simply and solely for the purpose of immunizing yourself and the President against criticism (though this certainly is a consideration some of the time). I believe that you work long and hard at convincing yourself that the two of you—the two most powerful human beings on the planet, mind you—really are victims of “racism.”
To put it another way, your charges of “racism” are not just politically motivated, are they? Ideologically and even psychologically, you and Mr. Obama—children of “privilege,” the two of you—need to believe that you are both “authentically black”—i.e. “oppressed”—and “down with the struggle”—i.e. “oppressed.”
Your interests are served well by the perception that you and Mr. Obama are unpopular because of your skin pigmentation, aren’t they Mr. Holder?
The problem, however, is that this lie in which you and Obama have invested your whole being is a great disservice to the interests of the rest of us—regardless of our skin color.
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