Pat Buchanan on the Obama speech

Well, if there’s any justice and sensibility in America, the idiocy that Buchanan is driveling about the Obama speech on race ought to propel its orator into the White House.

A few choice bits:

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

Actually, Obama did an amazing thing. Yes, he called on “white America” (I don’t recall if he used that term, but, like Pat, let’s pretend) to understand, and to follow through on that understanding.

But he didn’t (though Pat seems to have missed this) let the black community off the hook. He takes it to task (as much as he takes anyone to task) for divisiveness and focus on injustices that blinds them to the good in this country, from people of all races and backgrounds.

Yeah, Pat seems to have missed that part. He managed to interpret it all as a call for more welfare and affirmative action, neither of which I heard Obama talk about.

But, then, Pat seems to have some odd ideas about America and the the black community:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

“Far from apologizing for slavery, let alone offering reparations, we should be charging Blacks for the privilege of being slaves, then being second-class citizens under Jim Crow laws for the vast majority of American history.” Those aren’t his words, to be sure, but that seems to be his message. 

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

Gosh, I’ll be you if we really tried hard, we could figure out how both blacks and whites share responsibility for those statistics — and, as Americans, how we share the responsibility to do something about them.

Buchanan hears a speech about reconciliation, about trying to end divisiveness, about acknowledging that racial divides have existed that all sides have participated in, and that all sides need to acknowledge and move on from — and he manages to mold it into his prepackaged conceptions of “Blacks are criminals. Blacks are responsible for where they are in society. Blacks are welfare queens. Blacks are rioters. Blacks constantly have their hands out for tax dollars. Blacks always blame whites for their problems.” He looks at Barack Obama, and sees Al Sharpton.

Or … perhaps … he’s afraid that some folks might see something different.

(via BD)