The Race Card: Tired Game of Racial Solitaire Never Gets Old for Clueless, Liberals

Conservatism 101: D.I.Y. Political Education

Why does the race card keep getting played? Because it can. This is how support for a black man, Herman Cain, gets twisted into being a covert racist. Despite history, evidence or common sense, some liberals continue playing the increasingly-tired Race Card game. Are there really those who think every decision comes down to black vs. white? Da Tool Guy investigates and files his report in this week’s Conservatism 101.

CIVICS FOR THE MASSES

Darkside Dave said to me the other day, he was a little confused at the way conservatives keep getting labeled as racists, because he had yet to meet a conservative who cared much one way or the other what color some one’s skin was, and yet the left consistently tars us with that brush.

I had to tell him he’s not the only one who is tired of the race card getting played — especially in a time when most people could really care less, and voted a black man as president.

I had to explain to him the Democrat party’s history of racism.

You see, the man who freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln, was a Republican — indeed, the Republican party was founded in opposition to slavery.

However, the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis was a Democrat. Most segregationists were. To include George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama during the civil rights movement, Al Gore’s father who was a Senator himself, Albert Gore, Sr., and for that matter Robert C. Byrd who was a former grand poobah of the Ku Klux Klan.

Indeed the civil rights act could not have been passed were it not for the staunch support of Republicans in both House and Senate and over the loud and strenuous objections of Southern Democrats.

And yet conservatives continue to get labeled as racists.

We opposed Barack Obama, not on the color of his skin, but on the content (or lack thereof) of his character. Many of us support Herman Cain, not on the basis of his color, but because we like his ideas.

Yet according to the left, our opposition to Obama was racist because he’s black (more like burnt toast, his momma was a Kansas blonde, but meh, whatever) and, according to Janeane Garofalo, if we support Cain we’re racist, because he’s black.

Yeah, try to do the mental gymnastics on that one.

Here’s the reality.

The left loves to inject race into any argument they’re losing, because the very act of defending yourself from the charge makes you look like it’s the truth.

It’s shades of “some of my best friends are black, but I wouldn’t want my sister to marry one.”

It’s a charge that requires no proof, but which can tie you up in knots and force you to simply shut up, lest you be thought racist.

It also does more damage to race relations than any 100 real racists can do.

Is there real racism? Sure, not so much as there used to be of course. These days it’s highly frowned upon by polite society. My generation for the most part simply didn’t care about race. It just wasn’t an issue for us. The current generation, for the most part, has a hard time figuring out what the big deal about it is at all.

But every time the charge is leveled unfairly, it cheapens the struggles of previous generations, and makes it that much harder for someone who really is a victim of discrimination to be taken seriously.

It’s time and past time to have a frank and serious discussion about race in this country. But until the left quits using it as a weapon that discussion will be impossible.

by DaToolGuy
images: dbkp file; hubpages

DaToolGuy is a small town journalist with big time dreams. He’s spent his entire adult life laboring in the obscurity he actually deserves. But he’ll take the opportunity to show off when it comes.

DaToolGuy writes regularly at View from Flyover Country.

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