Black America’s latest problem: the white racial backlash resulting from Obama’s election

Black political columnists of notably limited thinking abilities are a fixture at major mainstream newspapers such as the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, and the New York Times. The difference between these black columnists and their white colleagues is exactly the same as obtains between black and white students at top universities and graduate schools: there is no overlap between the two races. The blacks who are given sinecures as columnists are characterized by a level of intellectual ability for which any white would be automatically rejected for the same position.

As evidence for my point, here’s a black columnist I hadn’t heard of before, Courtland Milloy of the Washington Post. The column below is not worth commenting on, in fact it defies analysis, but it’s worth reading for the sheer, well, stupidity of it.

And, by the way, if liberals are offended at my description of black columnists as being intellectually sub-par, the solution is very simple: stop hiring intellectually sub-par blacks as columnists. That may mean there will be fewer black columnists in the country, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. To paraphrase the saying about the difference between a wise man and a fool, wouldn’t it be wiser for blacks of modest intellectual abilities to refrain from opinion writing and be thought unintelligent, than to write op-ed columns at major newspapers and remove all doubt?

Obama Must Follow Through On His Threats to ‘Call Out’ Foes
By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

On several occasions this year, President Obama has expressed with certain bravado a threat to “call out” anyone who would undermine his reform efforts. The problem is that the Ivy League gentleman from Hawaii appears not to have mastered this coarsened art of the streetwise rebuke and, as a result, he tends to come off as bluffing.

“If you misrepresent what’s in this [health care] plan, we will call you out,” Obama told a joint session of Congress last week. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) apparently knew better. He not only misrepresented the plan but also interrupted Obama’s speech to call the president a liar.

Sure enough, Obama did not call him out.

Let’s face it: Our articulate and mild-mannered president doesn’t have the stomach for the kind of merciless ridicule that one uses to expose and embarrass political hypocrites and scoundrels. But if Obama is going to keep threatening to call people out—as if he were from the streets and not just someone who used to work in the streets—the least he can do is learn the fundamentals.

Otherwise, he’s just selling wolf tickets—writing macho bad checks with his mouth and leaving others to cover the racial overdraft.

Some people don’t believe Wilson’s outburst had anything to do with race. They’ll tell you it’s democracy in action. But tell that to the many African Americans who know first-hand the subtlety of post-racial slights. What had been our excitement over Obama’s election is rapidly becoming consternation at a marked increase in racism and attendant racial disparities—in health, income, jobs and housing—to say nothing of Obama’s abject refusal to even broach the subject of race.

With Obama virtually stunned into submission by Wilson’s retort, senior black Democrats were left scrambling to defend the young president’s honor. House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who is black, tried the backroom approach and pleaded three times for Wilson to make a public apology. (Actually, asking more than twice amounts to begging.) Wilson refused.

That snub led to Tuesday’s House vote to sanction Wilson—the only face-saving measure that black lawmakers could offer their constituencies. Unfortunately, the move had the unintended consequence of making Wilson a martyred son of the South. Rebel yellers in the district where he is seeking reelection could hardly ask for a better reason to rally.

Meanwhile, during an interview Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Obama said he had been surprised by the insult from Wilson but appreciated the private apology he received afterward.

Never mind that the apology was perhaps one of the most insincere in recent memory. Wilson now uses the incident as part of his fundraising campaign—visible proof that he’s got what it takes to treat a man like Obama the old-fashioned, South Carolina way.

“Do you think that Congressman Wilson should be rebuked?” correspondent Steve Kroft asked Obama. “There was talk about that today, and now he’s claiming that he is a victim. That he’s being attacked.”

Obama responded with inappropriate laughter. “But see, this is part of what happens. I mean, it becomes a big circus instead of us focusing on health care.”

Talk about clueless.

Clyburn was reportedly exasperated that Obama advisers, who are overwhelmingly white, had urged the president to publicly forgive a man who would not publicly apologize and simply forget about the insult.

And yet, many African Americans just don’t have that luxury. We know that part of the price we must pay for having a black president is finding ways to cope with a growing racial backlash.

Obama needs to know that when he gets slapped, figuratively speaking, during a speech to Congress that is being broadcast worldwide, black people everywhere feel the sting.

I suggest that since the young president has a penchant for special advisers, he should appoint a smack-down czar who can school him on how to deal with these increasingly offensive insults.

Lesson one ought to be fairly straightforward: When giving a major policy address and some ill-mannered yahoo yells out an insult, the first thing you do is call out the culprit. Make him stand up and endure the boos. In Wilson’s case, stare him down with contempt and pity, then remind the gentleman from Dixie that his side lost—again—and that he’d do well to show as much class in defeat as Robert E. Lee.

As for those Republicans rudely waving papers while you’re trying to speak, politely request that they fold their documents into cone shapes and sit on them until you are finished.

Then pick up where you left off: “… and I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead.” If the heckling continues, call Serena Williams. Tell her to bring two tennis rackets.

E-mail: milloyc@washpost.com

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JBZ writes:

No newspaper epitomizes the intelligence gap between black and white (or should I say white male and non-white male?) columnists better than the New York Times.

Look at the education of each NYT columnist:

Charles Blow: Grambling State University
David Brooks: University of Chicago
Roger Cohen: Oxford University
Gail Collins: Marquette University, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Ross Douthat: Harvard University
Maureen Dowd: Catholic University
Tom Friedman: Brandeis University, Oxford University
Bob Herbert: State University of New York (Empire State College)
Nicholas Kristof: Harvard University, Oxford University
Paul Krugman: Yale University, MIT
Frank Rich: Harvard University

Does anyone even have to wonder which columnists are black?

Jim C. writes:

“And, by the way, if liberals are offended at my description of black columnists as being intellectually sub-par, the solution is very simple: stop hiring intellectually sub-par blacks as columnists. That may mean there will be fewer black columnists in the country, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. To paraphrase the saying about the difference between a wise man and a fool, wouldn’t it be wiser for blacks of modest intellectual abilities to refrain from opinion writing and be thought unintelligent, than to write op-ed columns at major newspapers and remove all doubt?”

The elephant in the room with respect to the so-called backlash against Obama is precisely the same elephant that motivated Auster’s contempt for mediocre black columnists at the Washington Post: gross racial preferences. Barack Obama is a fraud, his resume a fiction:

1. he had lousy grades at Columbia (and presumably lousy LSATs), yet he was accepted by Harvard University law school—therefore, he is NOT an Ivy Leaguer

2. and he’s not a writer: check out the piffle he wrote at HLS in defense of affirmative action

3. and he’s not an intellectual—see any of his dumb moves: Afghanistan, Sotomayor, and especially health care “reform”

What is patently obvious about Obama is not only his intellectual mediocrity but also his intellectual laziness: Nowhere in Obama’s overrated speeches do we get an opporunity to witness a well-thought-out argument.

I’ve coined the term affirmative incompetence to describe this mismatch phenomenon in society that results from cognitive apartheid. I would urge all your readers to start using it. And let’s not kid ourselves: affirmative incompetence will not appear on the liabilities ledger anytime soon in the GAO.

D. in Seattle writes:

Jim C.’s latest comment about what Obama is not nudged me to try to define what Obama is. Based on what I’ve seen and read so far about him, I believe Obama can be classified as a sales and marketing guy, with one notable characteristic: the product he’s been selling and marketing is himself.

Not cars, houses, toothpaste, or IT services—at least those all serve useful purposes and knowing how to sell them requires a salesman to understand the real needs and desires of his customers. But selling oneself for the sole purpose of climbing up the social ladder also leaves one without any other tangible and useful skills. Which, in the case of Obama, is becoming more and more painfully obvious day by day.

LA replies:

Yes, I and others said this during the election that Obama’s one supreme skill—and the basis of his supreme confidence in himself—was his ability to talk and charm people. I said that this ability alone gave him the confidence that he could be president. He figured he could handle any situation.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 17, 2009 11:50 AM | Send