Holder: U.S. a 'nation of cowards' on race discussions

Case in point, look at this asshole Al Sharpton........

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A New York Post cartoon Wednesday drew fire from civil rights activist Al Sharpton and others who say the drawing invokes historically racist images in suggesting an ape wrote President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package.
Al Sharpton says he wonders whether the cartoon "is making a less-than-casual inference" to a form of racism.

Al Sharpton says he wonders whether the cartoon "is making a less-than-casual inference" to a form of racism.

The artist, Sean Delonas, called Sharpton's reaction "ridiculous," and the newspaper defended its decision to run his cartoon. But other African-American leaders joined Sharpton, who has been the butt of previous Delonas panels, in attacking what they called the cartoon's racial overtones.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/18/chimp.cartoon/index.html

He is not only a coward but stupid comes to mind also.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the cartoon was NOT what this racist thought.

Personally I find it in bad taste that NYT thinks it is better to use the tragic incident where a woman was killed by chimpanzee to oppose the stimulus bill. But other than that, your right; in this case and a lot of case, Al Sharpton is wrong although in the past a lot of people have compared blacks to monkeys, but in this case it is clearly referring to the tragic death of the woman, which is sadly without class in itself.

But as for Holden, I don't understand the beef, for the most part people don't like to discuss racism and would rather just say it is in the past when clearly it is not.

Not knowing if you are part of a minority group, from my perspective, so long as you keep your complaints about the past in the present, you can never get it behind you.

There can be no "restitution" for the sins of the past unless we all recognize that we belong to the SAME RACE and we are all given the SAME OPPORTUNITIES and are treated equally under the law.

Holder, should know better than to suggest there are still "issues" regarding "race" when he is in a position to suggest equal opportunities exist and all are treated equally under the law.

I didn't read the whole page, but I doubt he said anything about restitution but recognizing there is still a problem of racism is only facing reality and I am glad he is in the position he is in so that real concerns which come can be addressed. If they are not real concerns, then they won't be addressed but dismissed.

He stated no specific issues other than the usual rhetoric.

What are YOUR concerns about race?

Merely that it still exist and if not for laws many poeple would still do many of things they used to do before the civil rights movement. Now there are laws in place to protect people should the need arise.

What exists?

racism.

I'll give a likely hypothetical example. Say there is this neighborhood where a majority are white and kind of poor (but not in the housing projects) and a black family wants to buy a house for sale there. The whites start to object because number one they happen to be racist and just plain don't like blacks and number two they think it will bring down the price of housing if blacks move in. They get together with the owner who is selling and convince him he better not sell to the black family or else..

If there were no laws on the books they could get away stuff like that and have in past but we have a court and laws to protect ourselves against the prejudices of others.

There were laws against extortion and threats of bodily harm well before the civil rights movement.

BINGO!!!

Can REVEL site an occurrence of that in the past 20 years or so?

As long as there are different races, there will be racism.

Likewise, as long as there are males and females in the USA, there will be sexism.

As long as humans age, there'll be ageism.

Don't worry...be happy!

I said stuff like that not exactly that situation. In any case I refer you to the
Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity website where you will read cases of discrimination in housing situations still in existence.

http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/

Yes but not laws against racial discrimination which can just be one person refusing someone the right to buy a house simply because they don't like their skin color or religion...

After doing a quick reading on how someone would go about suing a homeowner on the basis of racial discrimination...it seems that convincing a judge of that would be nearly impossible. In your hypothetical example the black couple buying the house would have to prove that other homeowners are in collaboration and convinced the seller not to sell to them. So, while there are laws the prevent this, proving that it happened is a whole other story.

It becomes easier when more than one black couple/family are involved. I believe in the successful cases a pattern was clearly evident when looking at a multitude of different purchase attempts.

Cycloptichorn

I suppose there are a few places where this situation might exist. This was too common in the 50's and 60's in some areas where white neighbors would get together and collaborate to purchase a house for sale in their neighborhood to prevent black people from moving in. And there were the cases of the seller being so offended at such tactics that they accepted the offer of the black family even if the white coalition offered more money.

Admittedly many of these cases were instigated by civil rights activists and the minority buyers were part of that. You can't imagine otherwise that there would be a lot of people who would choose to establish their primary residence in such a hostile environment.

By the 70's, however, most of this kind of stuff had died out in most places. Affirmative Action and the Civil Rights Act had done most of the necessary work. White folks from previously segregated societies had become used to seeing, working with, eating in restaurants with, sitting in the movies with, going to school with, sharing drinking fountains with, and living in neighborhoods with black folks. When the militant groups, both black and white and every hue in between who offended just about everybody, stayed out of it, most people accepted the changing culture. It began to feel normal and unremarkable and most people no longer thought much about it.

We are a 'nation of cowards' not because we don't talk about existing racism. We do. We talk about it. We write about it ad nauseum. We expound on it. We advertise and telegraph it at every opportunity. It's the politically correct thing to do.

But in my opinion, what most people are cowardly about is the willingness to admit that the legal work has been done to achieve equality of opportunity and now its time to stop treating people of different colors differently. Racism exists not because we aren't willing to talk about it, but because we talk about it so much.

So long as we continue to focus on it, claim victimization by it, legislate with it in mind, gerimander voting districts to accommodate it, make it an issue in all our demographics, and use it for personal gain, racism will not go away. Until black mothers stop telling their kids not to trust a white teacher and until white people stop wearing their black neighbors, friends, coworkers as badges of honor, we will continue to see each other as separate and distinctly alien species.

The only cure for racism is to see a person's skin color as of having no more significance than their eye or hair color. And that will only happen when we stop focusing on skin color as somehow distinguishing one person from another person in any material way whatever our motive might be for doing that.

So the guy is right. We are a nation of cowards when it comes to race, but not for the reasons I think he intended.

50's 60's and 70's? That was 30 years ago,

GET OVER IT!