While former candidates Clinton and Romney donned their favorite jumpsuits and went roof-shopping this morning, the rest of us should exult over the extraordinary significance of Barack Obama’s clear-cut victory last night in Iowa.
His stunning tour de force offered two historic proofs:
- It shines a luminous light on the manipulated lie that America is a racist country and hands race-baiters their worst defeat in 40 years, since Dr. Martin Luther King was preaching.
- It will convince all but the most hateful that a black man or woman can run for office as a person, not a person of color. Are you listening Mark Ridley-Thomas? Are you listening Laura Richardson? Are you listening Karen Bass? Are you listening Bernard Parks?
Anyone who declines to exuberantly join in the celebration of Mr. Obama’s fascinating win is foolishly denying himself one of the premier benefits of living in America.
This is the most wonderfully washed-over feeling I have luxuriated in as an American since the intoxicating Days of Togetherness immediately following 9/11.
Voters in Iowa may be certified hicks, and they may use corncobs for earrings. They may be vaguely educated, and they may not be nearly as savvy as you are and I am. However, they proved last night to the skeptics that they are clear-headed and pure-minded.
Digest the Numbers
You can laugh at Iowa for being a vanilla state. Of the voters, 93 percent were white, 4 percent black.
Foul-mouthed race-baiters — white and black, plenty of both —have been telling us ever since Dr. King’s murder that a black candidate should not expect to win in such a racially volatile atmosphere. Oh yeah?
Far removed from the clouded universes of drugs and junk on both coasts, the supposedly down-savvy Middle Westerners made a stentorian statement about the state of black-white relations in America.
It ain’t bad.
Not perfect, but perfection is only what racists strive for. Improvement is our realistic goal.
Never Stop Trying, but…
Of course there is racism in America. Comparatively, though, it is the size of a raindrop this morning when measured against the environment we lived in 40 and 50 years ago.
As long as there is more than one race in this country, there will be an amount of racism. I am a Jew who comes face-to-face, periodically, with anti-Semitism. The incidence is far smaller than when I was a kid, but it always will be there.
Since this is a serious discussion, kindly do not introduce “gender bias” and similar cooked-up scenarios that are as phony as the
liberals who invoke the myths.
A bitter-spoken racist sportswriter at the Los Angeles Times, feeling very entitled, tried to ignite a racial fight last month over the pending firing of UCLA’s football coach, a nice black man who was done in by his soft personality and coaching deficiencies. Every race has its boobs, and the sportswriter felt compelled to offer proof for a few days running.
The Bandwagon Is Revving up
My conservative credentials notwithstanding, I am warming up for Mr. Obama beyond our most obvious points of disagreement.
In the meanwhile, it probably is too late for the yahoo black politicians our region is saddled with — “Vote for me because I am black and you are black” —to mature into serious, useful persons.
With Mr. Obama’s help, we shall persevere.