Crying Wolf
September 23, 2009 by Standing on Truth
Filed under Culture
My heart is heavy with the way our country is dividing lately. The issue of race is far too serious with which to be playing politics, and yet it is interjected into the cultural climate on a weekly basis. I am not speaking of those events that clearly and without question include racial biases and prejudices. I agree that those exist and are deplorable. What I am disheartened by is the increase in those who “cry foul” when none exists, inevitably creating a perceived victim and a perceived villian. It is the indefensible argument.
This was an email I received from Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council this weekend:
“Race Card: Sign of Desperation
Yesterday, the House voted 240 to 179 to censure Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) for saying the President was lying about aspects of his health care reform plan. What was more telling than the vote was the rhetoric that surrounded it. Those pushing to publicly flog Wilson avoided the subject at hand, the health care reform plan and whether or not the President’s statements were false.
Rather, House members like Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) used the opportunity to say Wilson ’s actions were motivated by racial animus. In an interview with CNN, Johnson said “I guess we’ll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside, intimidating people. That’s the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked.” On ABC’s World News, referring to Wilson’s comments, Lee said “Hate speech can turn into hate crimes.
Working out of the Left’s classic playbook, former President Jimmy Carter, interviewed on NBC Nightly News, chimed in not only on Wilson’s comments but on the public opposition to the President’s liberal plans saying, ‘I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American.’ This is a classic move by the Left when they can’t win the policy debate; they try to marginalize their opponents by calling them racist.”
This weekend, at the Value Voter’s Summit in Washington, D.C. (which I watched through a webcast), Star Parker, conservative, columnist, and president of CURE, said, “Truth has no color.” Amen. What conservatives are objecting to is President Obama’s agenda and policies, not his color. What we are objecting to are his radical associations, his radical distortions of the U.S. Constitution, and the radical consequences for our country. What we are objecting to is his definition or interpretation of “truth” (or rather his watering it down).
Star Parker continues her thoughts from the weekend in an excellent article today from her website. In it, she says:
“Despite claims from our Democrat administration that it wants civility, it does not. It wants control.
This nation is already torn apart ideologically. In the last four months, we’ve witnessed two cold-blooded ideologically motivated murders. An abortion doctor shot in a church and a pro-life demonstrator murdered in a drive-by shooting in front of a school.
There are fewer and fewer ’self evident truths’ about which we all agree.
The current charade to paint ideological differences with our president as racially motivated dangerously pours gasoline on the burning embers of our differences.
But this is what Democrats want. They have lost the health-care debate on substance, so they want to make it emotional. They want to intimidate. And nothing intimidates and polarizes like race.”
Strong words, but I’m inclined to believe them. Everyone knows the story of the boy who cried wolf. What I fear is that the “crying wolf” about racial things will only yield an even more divided nation, one in which there are two extremes. . .one side that claims racism as the motivation for absolutely everything that they do not like and the other side that denies racism even in the face of clear evidence. Representative Joe Wilson is motivated by his passionate belief that President Obama’s health care plan is deceptive and bad for America, not by racism. The Tea Party goers and Town Hall protesters are motivated by their passionate belief that spending our children’s future is bad for America, not by racism. Yes, there are a few bad apples out there among them all, but by and large, this is a policy difference. And if we cry “racism” too many times for too many things that are clearly not, we may miss the times when it really is racism.
