Betsy: The Anatomy of Race Mongering

Isn't everyone tired of the race thing? Easy for you to say, Melissa, you're a dumpy, white, augmented blond, true-blue eyed, American woman. Besides the occasional tune-up by your husband (all men abuse their wives) and being oppressed by the institution of marriage itself (marriage squelches all people and invites the government behind your doors) and birthing children (which is demeaning and undignified and a sell out of your talent and education) and even worse, breastfeeding (ewww, you wrote the words "breast" and "feed" in the same sentence), you are the majority. You don't know from discrimination.

So, as you can see, I'm not qualified and/or equipped to be tired of the "race thing". I don't know Betsy's persuasion, but she gives a nice anatomy of race mongering ala Jesse Jackson:

First you trump up a phony complaint of racism because of a gag in a Republican ad against Harold Ford. Then you get your friends in the media to have a meltdown over it alleging all sorts of racist attacks. Stephen Spruiell has some amazing excerpts from Chris Matthews going bozo over finding racist and ethnic attacks (now they are alleging a subliminal message because there are drums in one Bob Corker ad)in GOP ads, except for Michael Steele whom he praises for being unthreatening in his ads. Matthews likes the Steele ads for being so unthreatening that they're almost "child-like."

After you've softened up the ground with all your allegations of Republican racism then you can expand from politics to some of your other goals. So, Jesse Jackson has jumped in to extend the attack on the RNC anti-Ford ad into an attack on Wal-Mart because someone who works for the agency that created that ad also works on Wal-Mart ads.

Go to her post to read the whole sordid thing.

To be clear, I'm not saying discrimination doesn't exist. It does. It is repugnant. It is close-minded. We diminish true racism, though, by going injustice hunting to try to scare up an issue so we can use the ax we like to grind.

I also believe that discrimination has diminished enough in most places against almost every minority you can name (hearing impaired, different-abled, special, woman, transgendered, gay, lesbian, of color, grayified, please add to the list in the comments), that the focus now should be on merit and performance and ideas.

I like the idea of a nation where children and adults, alike, are judged on "the content of their character." We can't get to that place if we're always focused on the color of the skin, the gender, the age, the victim group we choose to identify with.

Enough, already!