Larry Elder is a better man than I.
Janeane Garofalo, a purported comedienne, called Elder a “house Negro” at the Democratic National Convention. Not to his face, of course.
For four days, the Democratic Party put on its quadrennial scare-old-people-and-minorities party. Democrats, of course, rely on the 90-plus percent monolithic black vote. Thus, a black “non-liberal” poses a direct threat to the party’s national prospects. When Garofalo agreed to a sit-down, she clearly knew nothing about me. When I defended the administration on the War on Terror, a frustrated Garofalo started to get up and leave, muttering, “This show sucks.” After I called her a coward, however, she sat back down and finished the segment.After our interview, Garofalo began broadcasting her radio show on “Air America.” Several of my callers — I was still on the air at the time — said that Garofalo called me a “house Negro” and a “fascist.” Then something interesting happened. Garofalo’s people asked me to appear on her show. Would I agree?
Maybe it’s a woman thing (ever heard of a catfight?), but if I heard that she’d called me a name like that, you know what I’d say to her? I’d…I’d…man, if I got the chance to see her face to face, I’d…calmly ask her to refrain from such ad hominem diatribe and focus on the merits of our respective positions. It would be un-Christian to say (or do) what I wanted to say.
White liberals get away with such racist statements all the time. A perfect example is the infantile scribbler, Ted Rall, who referred to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as a “House Nigga” (see Booker Rising).
While conservatives are called racists for believing that preferences and other government handouts are demeaning and unfair to all, white liberals can use the word “ni**er” in public, as long as the epithet is directed at someone like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Unprecedented.
Mrs. Williams is a fortunate woman to be married to a cool economist like Walter Williams. In his latest column he writes:
If there is one general characteristic of white liberals, it’s their condescending and demeaning attitude toward blacks.According to a Washington Times story (July 14, 2004), Democratic hopeful Sen. John Kerry, in a speech about education to a predominantly black audience, said that there are more blacks in prison than in college.
“That’s unacceptable, but it’s not their fault,” he said. Do you think Kerry would also say that white inmates are faultless? Aside from Kerry being factually wrong about the black prison population vs. the black college population, his vision differs little from one that holds that blacks are a rudderless, victimized people who cannot control their destiny and whose best hope depends upon the benevolence of white people.
Have you watched some white politicians talking to black audiences? It’s bad enough to watch the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do an imitation of Flip Wilson’s Rev. Leroy. But to watch Al Gore and Bill Clinton do it is insulting at the least. They don’t talk to white audiences that way. As a matter of fact, Sharpton and Jackson don’t talk to white audiences that way, either — talking about going from the outhouse to the White House and from disgrace to amazing grace and other such nonsense. By the way, after addressing the NAACP’s 95th annual convention in Philadelphia, Kerry gave the audience the black power clenched-fist salute. I wonder whether his white audiences get the black power salute as well.
It may be something only a conservative would notice, but in my every day experience, the typical white liberal I encounter is usually condescending. That all changes, though, once they hear my conservative views. There are exceptions, of course, but not many.
Williams concludes: “It’s always been my contention that the conservative vision shows far greater respect for blacks than the liberal you-can’t-make-it-without-us vision.”
Right on! (That magazine is still around?)
Liberals — black, white, whatever — deserve each other.
