printThe current column, “2014: The Year Of Living Racially,” surveys some of the major racial milestones of the year, only to conclude … Well, read it yourself, on WND.
My man Richard Sherman said something that kicked off the 2014, year-round, banal, racial back-and-forth that parades as debate in the U.S.
Other than that the Seattle Seahawks are my team, on account that they’re from my neck of the woods; what I know about American football is dangerous. So naturally, I was rooting for, if not watching, the Hawks, when, following their victory over the San Francisco 49ers, Sherman said That Thing. And from their citadels of stupidity, U.S. mainstream media—conservatives, liberals and libertarians—went into full St. Vitus mode
“I’m the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like [Michael] Crabtree, that’s the result you gonna get. Don’t you ever talk about me!”
Sherman sounded good to me. Still does. The man was pumped, as men ought to be in a testosterone-infused game. The Seahawks’ cornerback was correct to point out that his “outburst,” following the “defensive play that sealed his team’s trip to the Super Bowl,” was an extension of “his game-time competitiveness.”
“Let’s not make thug the new N-word,” pleaded John McWhorter, a scholar of color, whose intellectual and moral authority in the culture stems primarily from the concentration of melanin in his skin cells, not from the force of his argument.
Come again?
As in January of last year, I still don’t get the reason for the fuss over what Sherman said. His boisterous bit of theatre set in motion some racial, national free-association, which no man or woman with a brain cell to rub between them can follow.
Speaking of mindlessness, in February, the president of black America launched his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative. Barack Obama claimed “this initiative” as his “lifelong goal,” “even after he leaves office.”
If to go by Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” “rising inequality and declining mobility,” as well as “widespread decay in moral fiber”—these are as serious and widespread among “white, lower-status, less well-educated Americans,” as they are among the black and Hispanic communities. It was against this backdrop that Obama signaled his intention to deploy his signature initiative to keep at least $200 million belonging to “leading foundations and businesses,” for “programs aimed at minority youth of color.” …
Read the rest. “2014: The Year Of Living Racially” is now on WND.
Happy New Year.
ILANA
UPDATE I: The title of the column is from a movie, but I doubt anyone under 40 (Kerry Crowel excepted), brought up on current Hollywood fare, will remember “The Year of Living Dangerously.”
UPDATE II (1/2): FREE People Don’t Fear “Racial Polarization.” I am not sure why people, in this so-called free society of ours, “worry” so much about what they term “racial polarization.” Leave people to fire, hire, rent, employ or live with whomever they wish. So long as there is no aggression against The Other, who cares about “racial polarization”? Isn’t the right to include and exclude a feature of freedom of association and the right of private property.