What if I told you I could solve the issue of racism in America? Bigotry, blind hate, and ignorance constitute part of the human condition. I cannot fight human nature. But what if the cure for real racism in America is nothing more than the definition of the word itself?
Take a moment to define “racism.” Everyone’s first instinct is to say “a belief one’s group is superior, based on skin color alone.” They may phrase it differently but the intent is the same. Most of us have accepted the politically correct definition of racism.
I posed this question to my family, friends, fellow conservatives, and a few liberals–27 people in all. Only one person gave me an alternate definition of racism: Breitbart’s Brandon Darby.
In the sixties, the left changed the definition of racism.
If conservatives complain about the debt, they are racist. If conservatives complain about the deficit, the healthcare system, illegal immigration, Social Security, gun control–any contemporary issue–we are labeled racist.
Adding insult to injury, most calls of racism are shouted by white progressives. White progressives are undoubtedly sincere in their beliefs; they are convinced with 100 percent certainty their shouts of “racism” are completely justified.
Conservatives react to this justification with disbelief. We laugh it off, joke it off, or create a funny #hashtag in mockery. We defend ourselves from their attacks, claiming no one is falling for their tactics.
Yet, we lose.
With each defeat, white progressives get more brazen. Chris “thrill up my leg” Matthews can absurdly apologize for the racism of all white Americans?
Any normal person would look at such a remark as pure audacity. The left does not bat an eyelash, because Chris Matthews is fighting on the left’s battlefield of racial politics. In the progressive mind, he has been granted that power and authority.
Think about what qualifies you as a racist to the left. In the aforementioned list of “racial” subjects that are off limits, what trait do they all share?
They are all tenants of socialism and a collectivist ideology. If you attack any government program, you are a racist. If you attack unions, green energy, or any other spread the wealth program, you are a racist. If you are selfish and believe in saving for the future and leaving a legacy for your children, then you are racist.
The left’s new definition of racism is any attempt to push the “white man’s capitalism” onto the black, brown, or red communities. It is a staggering abandonment of traditional American values based on individual rights, the philosophy that all men are created equal, and the principle that one should be judged based on the content of an individual’s character, not the color of his skin. If that were the case, white progressives could not get away with the names they call black conservatives.
In the mind of the progressive, it is not the color of your skin that makes you a racist. It is the simple fact you believe in free-market capitalism.
Let that sink in. If you mention food stamps, Section 8 housing, black-on-black crime, abortion rates, high school dropout rates, or single parent households, you are a racist. It has nothing to do with your skin color.
It’s about your audacity to favor free-markets and individualism over the failures of collectivism and socialism.
Take the issue of school choice. The white progressive will say the right is racist because they want to reduce the power of teachers unions. Yet, a huge amount of black students never reach graduation. School choice programs in Washington, D.C. have turned around graduation rates, which were at 94 percent in the 2011-2012 year for a program that was 87 percent black. Is it really about race?
It does not matter because conservatives choose to fight on the left’s battlefield. The most basic instinct against calls of racism is to defend. We say, “Obama cancelled the school voucher program in DC…”
The moment we say, “Obama…” we have lost the conversation. The left now has us using their politically correct definition of racism, instead of us bringing them to the battlefield of capitalism.
More than any other subject, the left has marked Obama and any attacks on him as the highest form of racism. White progressives will smack down black progressives that question Obama. It is not a matter of race. Ask Tavis Smiley what happens if you speak against President Obama.
On the battlefield of free-market capitalism and traditional American values, we can destroy the left at their own game.
On school choice, we need school vouchers because I want to see my kid compete with your kid. Steel sharpening steel. If both our sons are put into the best school with the best teachers and we combine forces to put the highest levels of expectation at their feet, both of our children would be unstoppable.
Of course, to liberals, this all makes us racist. How can we expect black inner city kids, from single parent homes, to compete with rich, white kids from suburbia?
Until we recognize, understand, and destroy the progressive ideology, racism will always exist in America. As long as progressives with political power maintain their dependency groups and the cages of the inner city they have built to contain them, the failures of social engineering will continue to be blamed on the “white man’s capitalism” through the prism of race.