I won't comment too much more on Mark Steyn's defense of Bill Bennett, except to concur whole-heartedly with the contention that the capability to have a serious, honest conversation on race does not exist in this country. There is no dialogue, there is only preaching, and the vast majority tune it all out. We've reached the point where some silly pile of clothes (Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, by name) can carp about the fact that there's no Hurricanes with African-American names, and the stupidity of it doesn't even register. As if the thousands of poor urban blacks in New Orleans would have felt better if it had been Hurrican Kunta-Kinte that made them suddenly homeless and wet.
But, watcha gonna do? There's a fortress of self-righteousness around people that say things like that, a complete lack of awareness of how such a complaint is scarecely more than late-night comedy fodder. As a honkie, I could no more critique Sheila Jackson-Lee (funny, I don't see an African name in there anywhere) to her face than a Pit Bull could. I might make noises that sound like communication, but nothing in any context that she'd be prepared to absorb and respond to, and anyway she'd be to busy waiting for me to start turning rabid.
Oh, and please don't infer from any of this that I'm all that anxious for a real "dialogue" on race to start. I don't want any such thing. I don't want race to matter a damn in America, about anything: how you get a job, how you get an education, how you get a loan approved, how you get into college, anything. I'm hardly champing at the bit to discuss a subject that even Chuck D thinks is based on nonsense. In fact, the sooner everybody shuts up about it, the better off we'll all be.
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