An Explanation of the Backlash to Obama's Education Speech

First off, I am going to make my own position clear. I do not think that refusing to let your kids listen to any point of view is a good position for a parent to take. I did not like Obama's speech, but it had nothing to do with race and if I had been a parent I would not have barred my child from listening to it.

When Bush was in power, the conservatives complained that the reason liberals opposed stuff like Iraq wasn't because they had honest concerns about the morality or advisibility of invading another country, especially one that had no direct connection with 9/11 (the indirect connection being that it was a muslim country ruled by a dictator who a) harbored no lost love for this country and b) was quite vicious enough to deserve to be ousted in his own right). It was because they were un-American and, in their heart of hearts, supported the terrorists.

Now that liberals are in power, they're complaining that the conservatives are failing to adequately stand behind the new president. Not because they have honest concerns about what it will do to this country to put it on some sort of universal health care plan (which by the way, IS socialist), or the dubious morality of turning 9/11 into a National Service Day, but because Obama is black. Oh, no, it couldn't have been Obama's repeated exhortions to succeed because your country supposedly needs you that put the conservatives back up (and mine). It must have been Obama's skin color.

America was founded on the idea that a man was innocent of a crime until he had been proven guilty. But this is an idea that is disappearing more and more when it comes to things like sexism and racism. When you fire a white man for incompetence, everyone automatically assumes that the reason you fired him was incompetence. The idea that it might actually have been some sort of irrelevant personal grudge is not usually one that is entertained without evidence. But God help you if you have to fire a black man, or a woman, or a disabled person. God help you if you're the school librarian, you need books sorted, and the best readers in the class are all white. God help you if you need to hire a new engineering professor, but only 2 of the 100 applicants for the job are women. God help you when your deaf team partner refuses to do his job properly because his disability means he "can't help it". And when the books don't get sorted, the class doesn't get taught, and the space shuttle blows up because somebody misread the incompetently-written technical report... well, at least we can't be accused of discrimination. At least nobody's feelings have been hurt. And for those of you who think I'm exaggerating, I assure you that all of these are real-life examples that have occurred in my recent past, and that all of the potential future consequences, up to and including satellite and launch vehicle failures, are realistic ones.

So please stop crying "Racism!" every time someone says Obama is socialist, that they do not agree with him on something, that they do not want their kids to listen to ideas and viewpoints they don't agree with. Because every time you cry "Racism" with no actual evidence to prove your case, all you do is hand sensible people another example of why they should not support you when you do it. And like the boy who cried "Wolf!", you will eventually find that when the example of horrible racist oppression really does show up, there will be nobody left who will beleive you or be willing to support you.

Indeed, with every cry of "Socialist!" I cry back, "McCarthyist!"; but it is not heard. Rather, McCarthy's words are viewed as a rallying point, nevermind how false these words were and are or how mean-spirited their use, or how ignorant the rallied are of those who used them first.