The U.S. Senate confirmed this week the appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, making her the first Black female justice to hold the honored spot.
Can we just say racism in America, save for the few and far between, is not an issue any more — and go home?
But of course not.
That would mean the left would have to give up its all-powerful go-to race card, and instead of shouting out the tried and trusty true “R” word wherever and whenever political opposition mounts, engage in actual debate about actual facts and actual issues. That is to say: it probably won’t happen. Democrats are always calling somebody racist; the leftists in the Democrat Party are always fundraising off some generated outrage of racism.
But the truer picture of today’s America is that the nation has realized its Land of Opportunity For All label — has lived up to its Martin Luther King, Jr. quest for judgment by the content of character, not skin color.
The truer picture of America is this: Barack Obama was elected by 43% of White voters in 2008, a figure equal to Bill Clinton’s 1996 ballot count, and with 39% of Whites in 2012. Not bad for a nation that is composed of 60% Whites, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. By comparison, 95% or so of Blacks voted for Obama both times — and in this country, Blacks make up just a little more than 13% of the population.
If the tables were flipped on those voting tabulations, there would be cries of racism.
Just sayin’.
The truer picture of America is that Condoleezza Rice served as secretary of State. So did Colin Powell. Ken Blackwell, a former secretary of state for Ohio, ultimately ran for governor and then served as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Ben Carson served as Housing and Urban Development director. Clarence Thomas serves on the U.S. Supreme Court. Muriel Bowser serves as mayor of the Washington, D.C. Robert Contee serves as police chief of Washington, D.C. Kamala Harris holds the second-highest political office in America, the vice presidency.
My gosh, they’re everywhere.
Currently, 59 Blacks serve in the House and three in the Senate. And it’s not that the remaining are White; according to a Congressional Research Service report released just this week, another 52 serving in the House and Senate are Hispanics or Latinos; five in the House are Native Americans; and 21 in the House, Senate and as a delegate are Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans. Interestingly enough, given the left’s insistence on the South of both yesteryear and today being little more than a haven for Jim Crow-meet-KKK types, the first Blacks who served in Congress — Hiram Revels in the Senate and Joseph Rainey in the House — hailed from Mississippi and South Carolina, respectively.
And most recently, this: 53 U.S. senators, including three Republicans, voted in Jackson’s favor, making President Joe Biden’s dream of bringing forth the first black woman to the nation’s highest court a reality.
Where’s the racism now?
“Like so many of you,” Michelle Obama, former First Lady, said in a social media post, “I can’t help but feel a sense of pride — a sense of joy — to know that this deserving, accomplished black woman will help chart our nation’s course. So many women of color now have a new role model to look up to as she serves on the highest court of the land. Thank you, Justice Jackson, for giving black girls and women everywhere — including my daughters — a new dream to dream, a new path to forge, and a future we can all be hopeful for.”
Thing is, most in America already had that.
There will always be those who throw the race card, who look for the racial injustice, who seek with a vengeance to discover and destroy any disparity that can be put in terms of skin color. There will always be those who seek to exploit race for reasons not aligned with truth but rather with petty politics, personal vendettas or private ambitions.
But America is not racist. Some Americans are. But America as a whole is not.
America’s government and people and culture and politics and laws and education systems and business worlds and overall, general tendencies and leanings are not inherently racist.
Let the facts and statistics speak and it’s clear: America is land of the free — and that means for all.
* story by The Washington Times
