Obama Rides The Race Card
by Bruce Thornton [author] 11/6/07

When Barack Obama accused Hillary Clinton of “playing the gender card,” the hypocrisy that typically defines our public discourse on race descended into the surreal. Obama’s whole career has been created by and has exploited the perception that he––son of a white mother and an African father, raised in Hawaii, graduate of Columbia and Harvard––is “black,” that is, a victim of America’s incorrigible racism and oppression. In other words, Obama has gotten to where he is by subtly playing, or allowing others to play for him, the most powerful trump card in the game of social and political power.

The rules of this game state that all blacks, no matter how privileged, are victims, all whites are racist oppressors who just don’t “get it,” all black cultural dysfunction is a consequence of white racism, and only whites who loudly and repeatedly acknowledge their guilt can redeem themselves by distributing social, economic, and political reparations. The Amarillo Slims of this game are the Democrats and racial hustlers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Cornel West. But even some Republicans these days have accepted the rigged rules. Just look at how easily the whole Katrina disaster, a consequence of an entrenched, inept black city government, was laid at the feet of the Bush administration. [more]