October 28, 2009
Will the Real Racist Please Stand Up?
By Robin of Berkeley
I used to have a job that felt like Divine Grace. Since I was raised secular, it was as close to a religious experience as I had ever had.


I was fresh out of graduate school in my late 20s, working with black foster families and relatives in dicey areas of Oakland. Not a day went by that I didn't cry -- and not just because of the sorrowful plight of the kids.


I'd never been around people like this before, who loved God, who praised Jesus, who lived to serve him. In retrospect, I think my tears came because deep in my heart, I loved God too, but I didn't know it yet.


These families were not raising your average kids. There were crack babies screaming in agony 24/7; molested kids who compulsively masturbated; children beaten and burned and now acting like hellions.


And yet these families just kept on going because, as they would tell me, they prayed, and Jesus wanted them to take care of the kids. Most days, I could barely make it back to my car before I started weeping.


Many of these folks made indelible impressions on my young soul. I remember a 22-year-old single mom living in an immaculate though tiny apartment. Since she had a toddler and worked full time, I felt bad even asking her if she would caretake her cousin's newborn crack baby.


Without skipping a beat, she said yes, she'd take the baby in, and that her church friends would help. And then, of course, the tears started streaming.


Or the sheriff I interviewed who had a couple of kids but wanted to adopt another. She and her siblings were brutalized by an addict father.


I was rendered speechless when she told me, with arms outstretched, "My father would extend his arms like this and we'd be scared to death. I want my children to see my arms and run to me, knowing they'll be given a big hug."


When I started the job, I was a typical white liberal, out to rescue the poor. It took only a week on the job before a caregiver set me straight.


Visiting two kids in the roughest housing project in West Oakland, I brought gifts of coloring books and crayons. The girls' grandmother took me aside and lit into me, "I can afford to buy them toys. I don't need your charity."

This grandma taught me a lesson in humility more salient than any class in school: I should leave my white guilt and condescension at the door. I surrendered my preconceived notions about minorities and instead let them teach me.


My experiences have left me utterly clueless -- stupefied really -- about why the Left has a colonial attitude toward blacks. Even though I bought into most aspects of progressivism, I rejected this one.


Leftists view themselves as the Great White Hope. They need to extend a helping hand and TLC to the disenfranchised. In contrast, conservatives don't condescend. We desire a colorblind world where everyone has the opportunity for success.


Will the real racist please stand up?


While Obama fooled people with promises of a post-racial America, he and the Left are obsessed with skin color. They see nothing else.


Take, for instance, this flyer I just received from a local Buddhist center. (Warning: get out your barf bag.) The workshop, designed for white people, is called, "Working With Our White Skin Privilege and Inner Diversity." It explores how "we build identities of whiteness and the negative impact of this on others and on ourselves."


Translation: since most of the faces at Buddhist retreats are white, something must be wrong. And it's progressives -- like Dudley Do-Right -- to the rescue! It couldn't simply be that black people have their own religious preferences.


Left to our own devices, people do just fine. Put a diverse group of kids on a playground and they bond based on interests, not skin color. Ditto for adults at work or in their neighborhoods. But to liberals, everything is a problem that only they can solve.


Many well-meaning liberals truly think they're helping. But those on the far Left, including Obama and his minions, use race to induce fear and consolidate their power. When the masses start seeing that the Emperor has no clothes, the Left browbeats them by pulling out the race card.


Missing is any genuine concern for the plight of inner-city blacks. If the Left truly cared, they'd do more than blame whitey. They'd scrutinize the billions of dollars wasted on failed programs.


They'd acknowledge that welfare programs have rendered fathers optional. That reminding blacks 24/7 about slavery and other atrocities weakens their spirit, and positions them as permanent victims.


And that excusing antisocial behavior because of "white privilege" keeps the bar insultingly low, and promotes anarchy.


I had a nasty argument a few months ago with a (now former) friend, a mega-leftist, after a horrible incident at a local middle school. A group of black 8th-graders beat and stoned their white teacher in the middle of class, and then ran outside and destroyed her car.


When my ex-friend justified the kids' behavior with the twisted logic that they were in fact the victims, I blew my top. I told her that black youths are perfectly capable of sitting through class without pummeling their teacher.


She viewed the kids as broken, like damaged goods. I saw them as having the capability to be responsible, law-abiding people if society had some moral courage.


Why is the Left so paternalistic? I think for some liberals, it's the brainwashing. Live in these parts long enough and white people can feel ashamed of their whiteness.


But it's more than this: it feels good to be needed. We're talking here about white arrogance, not just guilt. It's a power trip to be the one handing out the handouts.


There's an old joke that's apt: a rabbi walks into his synagogue and starts hitting his head against the wall. He hollers, "I'm nobody! I'm nobody!"


The assistant rabbi walks in and sees the scene. He starts doing the same thing, banging his head and crying out, "I'm nobody! I'm nobody!"


When a janitor walks in and sees what these men of faith are doing, he decides to imitate them. He bangs his head against the wall, bellowing, "I'm nobody! I'm nobody!"


The rabbis stop their head-banging and look at the janitor with great disdain. His voice dripping with contempt, the rabbi says, "Look who thinks he's nobody."


Wearing the veil of magnanimity, liberals trumpet social justice and altruism. Unmasked, it's mainly about ego. They become somebodies by pretending they're nobody.


Black people do not want to be pitied, beholden to whites, or under anyone's thumb. I think most have decidedly mixed feelings about liberal programs that foster dependency.


While whites like to play the caregiver role, it's blacks who have a lot to teach: about dignity and perseverance, faith and humility. That is, if liberals were actually willing to listen and learn.


If I had to guess what blacks want, it would be the same things that whites want: love, respect, freedom, and dignity. The American dream and loved ones to share it with.


And I think that most blacks and conservatives yearn for the very same thing that actress Greta Garbo craved years ago -- to simply be left alone.