Newly installed United States Attorney General Eric Holder, the first ever African-American in this position spoke recently at an event at the Justice Department celebrating Black History month and said among other things: “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”
Hold on, Mr. Attorney General, you are not even a month in your current position and you have managed to insult a vast majority of Americans, including me! I came to this country nearly 45 years ago and I was not burdened with any prejudicial thought or feelings towards blacks or other people of color, to the contrary, I eagerly sought contacts with blacks be it in the workplace or in private. Never ever did I have a problem communicating or getting along with any black person and for you, Mr. Attorney General, to come out and make such a sweeping generalization by calling us cowards is not only an insult but a disgrace and no apology is accepted. You have shown us in your statement your insensitivity and arrogance and you are to me, totally unqualified to be heading the Justice Department of this country.
There are millions of solid race-relations between blacks and whites in this country. Every successful professional athlete maintains strong relationships with current and former coaches who are white from high school to college to the pros. Thousands of non-black coaches and teachers throughout the land have helped young black kids to develop their potential in whatever sport or other fields. We have previously shown a video of USC football coach Pete Carroll who goes regularly at night into black neighborhoods in South-Central Los Angeles to talk to gang members there and to convey to them the uselessness of gang fighting and killings. How dare you, Mr. Holder to include such a man in your generalization of ‘cowards’. Shame on you!
Unfortunately, the flip side of the coin is fact. If I were to call you out, Mr. Holder, and suggest to you that you should spend a few nights in South-Central Los Angeles with gang members since they might be more inclined to listen to you since you are black, I run the risk of being branded a racist! The same would hold true if I were to ask other black leaders, politicians, civil rights leaders or the like to do such things. So then, it looks like that it is a matter of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’. It is a reality, every time, a white person even utters any kind of criticism of a black person, it’s defined as racism. And by whom? None other than the black leadership in this country. Yes, Civil rights leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton have made careers (and millions of dollars) out of filing lawsuits against American companies for alleged discriminations in the workplace against blacks. These types of actions have led those and other companies to hold race-sensitivity classes and seminars for employees and especially management personnel with the result that everybody is very careful what he or she says. We also believe that the only people referring to blacks by using the “N” word are black people and it is apparently not offensive when that happens.
To my way of thinking, that first major step that could be taken to improve race-relations should be made by the black community, there needs to be an attitude adjustment on their part and if it is only to look forward instead of continuously living in the past. When black politicians and civil rights leaders continue to pursue Federal legislation for so called ‘slavery reparations’, it does not at all help to heal or improve any race-relations. Get yourself out of the ‘victimhood’ mentality, become positive in your attitudes and make your distrusts of whites in this country a thing of the past. But until there is such a change, a vast majority of whites in America will be left with the choice of being cowards or racists. And since it does not cost anything to be a coward in this matter (while being a racist could potentially be very expensive), many people will just remain what they are and where they are and go on with their lives.
It is my opinion that it did not help at all for the United States Attorney General to make such a stupid and totally uncalled for statement and we would have all been better off to let race-relations develop and improve on an individual level rather than trying to calling us whites cowards. I do not think that this will challenge anybody to do his or her part to improve race relations. We expect that readers of this article have different opinions on this matter and we urge you to respond to us and give us your take on this issue. Let’s have a dialogue on this.