I’m a Racist? Yeah, Well, Shove Off

Yesterday over on Facebook, there was a big dust-up because some woman told me I was racist.  What she really meant was:  My skin is white, and I don’t like Obama; hence, I’m obviously a hater.

I didn’t take her allegations lightly.  I went ballistic, in fact, shouting (well, typing really loudly) about how I am color-blind but I don’t like this president’s anti-Catholic social policies, his wild-eyed support for abortion and same-sex marriage, his management of the budget crisis, his Obamacare health plan debacle, his lack of patriotism, or his sniveling sneer.  The real racism, my fingers screamed at the keys, was to refuse to see me as anything but a white woman, to completely overlook the fact that I had evaluated the issues and formed a judgment based on verifiable standards which could be applied equally to politicians of any skin tone.

To call someone “racist” in contemporary society is to accuse them of harboring a shameful prejudice.  It is a harsh accusation which should not be made lightly.  Yet now and then, we still see the Race Card strategically slapped on the table—where, in the eyes of leftists with hate-seeking lenses, it trumps the Reason Card and the Budget Card and the Independent Thinker Card.

Here in southeastern Michigan, where I live, reverse racism has burst onto the scene this week—and it’s a member of the clergy who is championing it, demanding that skin color be the primary factor which determines a person’s eligibility for office.

Detroit, you may know, is broke.  After decades of declining revenues and with a control-freak city council lacking creative solutions, the city has found itself incapable of replacing its aging infrastructure—so streetlights are darkened, roads buckle, vacant homes burn or collapse.  Governor Rick Snyder has stepped in to appoint an emergency financial manager, who faces the daunting task of saving the cash-strapped city of Detroit from its leaders’ bad judgments.  Announcement of the governor’s appointee will be made soon.

But now, up to the microphone steps the Reverend Kenneth James Flowers, pastor of Greater New Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church.  Reverend Flowers concedes that an emergency financial manager is needed for the city of Detroit; but the manager must, Rev. Flowers insists, be black.

Flowers explained in an interview on Detroit’s WXYZ-TV:

“If a white individual comes in to become that EM, I think it would then create a major upheaval because then we’ll have the impression that ‘Ole Massa’ has come in to take over the plantation.”

To which I say:  Reverend Flowers, how dare you? 

You see, along with Martin Luther King Jr., I have a dream that I will one day live in a nation where people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.  You, Reverend Flowers, stand as a deterrent to the achievement of that noble goal.