Playing the race card
In the fall of 1992 a colleague of mine from the English Department wrote a letter to the school newspaper demanding that all faculty undergo racial sensitivity training as a condition for “faculty contract renewal.”
When I say “colleague of mine” I mean a weedy little whiner whose real career was not teaching English. His real career was being “black.” He had no following and nobody spoke up in support of his brainwashing proposal. What annoyed me was the fact that none of my faculty colleagues spoke up against a proposal that insulted them personally and professionally.
So I wrote a letter in response announcing that I would rather take a job cleaning chicken coops then comply with any such a demand. This was just the latest in a long string of professional annoyances, so this letter was just the start of a guerrilla war against Afrocentrism, affirmative action and the Ad Hoc Campus Task Force on Diversity. President Flora Mancuso Edwards also came under my fire when she endorsed the idea of a Campus Speech Code.
It pleased me that a half dozen black students approached individually to tell me they didn’t think I was a racist. One older student was a little more cautious, telling me that she didn’t know about racism, but I had always treated her fairly. These conversations revealed that there was a buzz on campus about my racist beliefs. Confirmation came from a former student who mentioned in one of our conversations that he had heard a student point out to me as the “biggest racist on campus.”
This pleased me most of all. I considered it a badge of honor. I still do. A man or woman who is a conservative, or even a moderate Republican, who has not had that epithet hung on him stands accused of timidity or paralyzing guilt.
This brings us to a discussion about left-lurchers “playing the race card.” They are well aware that the Black Vote, if split 50-50 or even close to 50-50, between Republicans and Democrats they would have to kiss their hopes of a national majority good-bye. They also know that this part of their base generally turns out to vote in lower numbers than white folk, unless they find a way to stimulate fear and resentment.
A voting cohort sensitive to the race card are those known as “gentry liberals.” College has taught them, and their social circles reinforce this, that racial tolerance is a mark of humanity and sophistication. More importantly it reinforces their sense of superior status; places them above the red-neck rabble.
So we find the Democrats baying for the blood of Sen. Michael Willette (R-Presque Isle). They want him out of the legislature because he posted a remark on his Facebook page about Obama dealing with ISIS at his next “family reunion.” For clarification we note that no one accuses the senator of actually burning a cross or doing anything at all. He has made no argument that Obama is a Kenyan-Marxist-Moslem. He is not campaigning for impeachment. He passed on a witticism. Mike Tipping has collected a series of Facebook remarks, that ace reporter Steve Mistler tells us “have been criticized as racist, bigoted and xenophobic.” Steve does not tell us what the remarks were. He does not tell us whether he himself considers them “racists, bigoted, and xenophobic.” He doesn’t need to. He has planted the seeds and they will germinate in the way he intends.
The senator apologized for his remarks, I think that was a mistake. This politically correct agonizing is not merely a manifestation of whimsical moral posturing. It’s also a political weapon for the party that is committed to playing the race-card for all its worth. It’s time to face down these manipulative hypocrites. Racial peace is the last thing they want. That card is more use to them than their attacks on the wicked rich.
I’m told that the Democrats originally persuaded Mike Willette to run. He was a member of the Democrats’ legislative caucus for four years. They never noticed he was a bigoted, racist, xenophobe until he became a Republican? Some may remember that Mike Tipping as the Maine People’s Alliance hack who came out with a book sliming Paul LePage as an ally with terrorists just before last year’s election. Does anyone think he would have spent hours going through Mike’s facebook page to come up his politically correct “gotchas!” if Mike was still a Democrat?
Professor John Frary of Farmington is a former U.S. Congress candidate and retired history professor, a board member of Maine Taxpayers United and publisher of www.fraryhomecompanion.com and can be reached at: jfrary8070@aol.com
