What do I tell my kid??

[Ken Newcomb]

I have a thirteen year old daughter that is a very strong in her beliefs which are typically Republican.

Because she is oppossed to Obama she is constantly being called a racist (I think that is all kids get from supporting Obama). Keep in mind that her best friend and lockermate is black, her other good friend is Chinese, and the girl across the street that hangs out all the time is American Indian.

She is really frustrated by the fact that because she is Republican that she is deemed racist.

SO...for all you staunch Dems on here how do I explain to her why all the kids think this but can't seem to defend Obama in any other way????

[Franco]

Sounds like you have a bright 13 year old!

There is no defense for Obomo and the only thing they can do is call us racist!

Don't forget that the overwheling support Obomo received were by those wanting the government to take care of them. If only the vote were counted by people that support their own households, Obomo would have lost by a landslide.

[twall]

Ken,

Have her watch Rush's speech to CPAC. He covered the racism issue us conservatives face now days.

One thing she can do is ask her accusers how she is being racist. In then end, her accuser is probably a closed-minded person who won't listen to her. It is training for her adult life.

Tom

[K G]

Her actions have to be above reproach. How she LIVES her convictions will prove her accusers to be the ones with the "problem."

kg

[Uncle Bill]

Here's an article you can share with Alanna, Kenny, that might give her some fodder for developing an answer to her ignorant peers. UB



Anne Wortham is Associate Professor of Sociology at IllinoisStateUniversity and continuing Visiting Scholar at StanfordUniversity's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association. She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. Dr. Wortham is author of The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues. She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality. Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness.






No He Can't

By Anne Wortham

Fellow Americans,

Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America.

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them. I would have to be wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the HarvardUniversity's Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States, the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

[Uncle Bill]

Ken,
Here's another view for you to share and discuss. This is one of the best post election articles written...so good I wish I had authored it. UB



WHITE GUILT IS DEAD


By Tom Adkins




Look at my fellow conservatives! There they go, glumly shuffling along, depressed by the election aftermath. Not me. I'm virtually euphoric. Don't get me wrong. I'm not thrilled with America 's flirtation with neo-socialism. But there's a massive silver lining in those magical clouds that lofted Barak Obama to the Presidency. For today, without a shred of intellectually legitimate opposition, I can loudly proclaim to America : The Era of White Guilt is over.




This seemingly impossible event occurred because the vast majority of white Americans didn't give a fluff about skin color and enthusiastically pulled the voting lever for a black man. Not just any black man. A very liberal black man who spent his early career race-hustling banks, praying in a racist church for 20 years, and actively worked with America-hating domestic terrorists. Wow! Some resume! Yet they made Barak Obama their leader. Therefore, as of Nov 4th, 2008, white guilt is dead.




For over a century, the millstone of white guilt hung around our necks, retribution for slave-owning predecessors. In the 60s, American liberals began yanking that millstone while sticking a fork in the eye of black Americans, exacerbating the racial divide to extort a socialist solution. But if a black man can become President, exactly what significant barrier is left? The election of Barak Obama absolutely destroys the entire validation of liberal white guilt. The dragon is hereby slain.




So today, I'm feeling a little "uppity," if you will. From this day forward, my tolerance level for having my skin color hustled is now exactly ZERO. And it's time to clean house. No more Reverend Wright's "God Damn America", Al Sharpton's Church of Perpetual Victimization , or Jesse Jackson's rainbow racism. Cornell West? You're a fraud. Go home. All those "black studies" programs that taught kids to hate whitey? You must now thank Whitey. And, I want that on the final.




Congressional Black Caucus? Irrelevant. Maxine Waters? Shut up. ACORN? Outlawed. Black Panthers? Go home and pet your kitty. Black separatists? Find another nation that offers better dreams. Go ahead. I'm waiting. Gangsta rappers? Start praising America . Begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. And please…no more ebonics. Speak English, and who knows where you might end up? Oh, yeah…pull up your pants. Your underwear is showing. You look stupid. To those Eurosnots who forged entire careers hating America ? I'm still waiting for the first black French President.




And let me offer an equal opportunity whupping. I've always despised lazy white people. Now, I can talk smack about lazy black people. You're poor because you quit school, did drugs, had three kids with three different fathers, and refuse to work. So, when you plop your Colt 45-swilling, Oprah watchin' butt on the couch and complain "Da Man is keepin' me down," allow me to inform you: Da Man is now black. You have no excuses. No more quotas. No more handouts. No more stealing my money because someone's great-great-great-great grandparents suffered actual pain and misery at the hands of people I have no relation to and I personally revile.







It's time to toss that massive, obsolete race-hustle machine upon the heap of the other stupid 60s ideas. Drag it over there, by wife swapping, next to dope-smoking. Plenty of room right between free love and cop-killing. Careful…don't trip on streaking. There ya go, don't be gentle. Just dump it. Wash your hands. It's filthy.




In fact, Obama's ascension created a gargantuan irony. How can you sell class envy and American unfairness when you and your black wife went to Ivy League schools, got high-paying jobs, became millionaires, bought a mansion, and got elected President? How unfair is that??? Now, like a delicious O'Henry tale, Obama's spread-the-wealth campaign rendered itself moot by it's own victory! America is officially a meritocracy. Obama's election has validated American conservatism!

So listen carefully......Wham!!!







That's the sound of my foot kicking the door shut on the era of white guilt. The rites have been muttered, the carcass lowered, dirt shoveled, and tombstone erected. White guilt is dead and buried.




However, despite my glee, there's apparently one small, rabid bastion of American racism remaining. Black Americans voted 96% for Barak Obama. Hmmm. In a color-blind world, shouldn't that be 50-50? Tonight, every black person should ask forgiveness for their apparent racism and prejudice towards white people. Maybe it's time to start spreading the guilt around.

[TN_LAB]

I wouldn't worry what those bigots thought. As a general rule, I'd suggest your daughter simply try to avoid it. No need picking a fight or going out of her way to express her opinion. Life is too short to argue with folks all the time.

A bigot is a person who, without thought, is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles or identities differing from his or her own, and bigotry is the corresponding attitude or mindset. Bigot is often used as a pejorative term to describe a person who is obstinately devoted to prejudices, especially when these views are either challenged, or proven to be false or not universally applicable or acceptable.

[Matt McKenzie]

UB,
Great articles.

Ken,
I've found that most people who use the word "racism" cannot define it. Have your daughter look up the definition and then when accused of racism, she should simply and calmly ask her accuser to define the word and explain to her how she is being racist. If they cannot do so, she can then define the word for them and explain that her behavior does not meet the definition. Just a suggestion.

[road kill]

I have a thirteen year old daughter that is a very strong in her beliefs which are typically Republican.

Because she is oppossed to Obama she is constantly being called a racist (I think that is all kids get from supporting Obama). Keep in mind that her best friend and lockermate is black, her other good friend is Chinese, and the girl across the street that hangs out all the time is American Indian.

She is really frustrated by the fact that because she is Republican that she is deemed racist.

SO...for all you staunch Dems on here how do I explain to her why all the kids think this but can't seem to defend Obama in any other way????

Tell your kid that you are proud of her!!

Tell her to "keep on keepin' on!!"

[Goose]

I have a 13 year old, too. You tell her to stay true to her beliefs and not to worry about what others might say and remind her what a true friend is.

Tell her we're proud of her.