Posted by
RANT BRAZEN on Saturday, February 21, 2009 7:40:57 PM
02:02:30pm 02/21/2009
VerneStrickland
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Mere weeks have passed since we witnessed the election of America's first black President. But already the rhetoric is ratcheting up. And some leaders who ought to know better are acting as if they don't know better. House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-SC, bitterly states that black citizens will be unfairly targeted if the Governors of four states refuse to accept their states' shares of the $747 billion stimulus pay-out. Clyburn claims the motive of the governors is racial. The governors respond that their stand is based on the belief that the huge federal bonanza is not a "stimulus" package but merely a "spending" spree. If the Senator truly feels that he is right, and I suspect he does, he might have phrased his objections in more delicate terms. In a similar brouhaha, Eric Holder, the nation's first black attorney general, went off the rails by complaining that, while Americans mix racially in the workplace, they appear to shun one another in their private lives. To this, he added, we are a "nation of cowards" where race is concerned. The fact is that, while the tart-tongued Attorney General might have some sway over integration of the business world, it is none of his business how we choose to spend our free time, and with whom we spend it. Sensitivity seems to be boiling over just when the nation is feeling a measure of pride over the historic significance of the national election. Ill-chosen words and hot tempers won't make this victory any sweeter. Quite the contrary. Why can't we all just get along?