SobekPundit

Still Pissed Off About the Hawley-Smoot Tariff

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

John Sylvester is a Racist

But it's okay, because he's liberal. Liberals can be as racist as they want.

You may have heard of the firestorm of controvery surrounding GWB's nomination of Condi Rice to be Secretary of State. The controversy is a simple one. Dr. Rice is black. She is a conservative. Therefore liberals hate her.

Racist piece of human garbage John Sylvester is one of those liberals. But I want to be more disciplined in calling someone a racist than liberals are, so let me take this from the beginning by defining racism, and then explaining how racist John Sylvester fits that definition.

Racism is the belief in the inherent superiority or inferiority of a group of people based on their race. Thus, for example, a Klansman who believes that all blacks are dumb (and therefore inferior) is a racist.

The racism that is endemic in liberalism is based on the belief that all blacks, or at least a majority of them, must think and act in a certain way. By itself, that belief is a stereotype (and stereotyping is different from racism - I say in general that Asians are short, but absent a value judgment based on that generalization, there is no racism). But that stereotype is attached to a distinct set of value judgments. Blacks who do not think in lockstep with the liberal stereotype have something wrong with them. They are Uncle Toms or Aunt Jemimas. They are lapdogs, parrots, trophies, etc. They don't recognize that the government has a special role to protect them, provide for them, empower them.

All of these (usually) unspoken value judgments stem from the fundamental belief that blacks are somehow inferior to other groups.

By subscribing to and aping that party line, John Sylvester demonstrates his racism. He does not complain about Dr. Rice's Ph.Ds, her tremendous accomplishments, her persuasive speaking abilities. He is complaining that she is a black who doesn't act like his conception of black people.

By way of further elaboration, consider this:

"Sylvester used the term on last Wednesday's show to describe Rice and other blacks as having only a subservient role in the Bush administration."

What, pray tell, does racist John Sylvester think of the subservient role blacks had in the Clinton administration? Oh, it was fine then, for some reason. Because when Clinton was in charge, all the blacks thought like blacks are supposed to think. They fit the pre-conceived mold. They were subservient, to be sure, but they were subservient in the right way.