The Cold War of Race

They say talking about entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are the “third rail” in American politics. I would venture that the third rail in American culture is race. It’s an issue that is ever present with us throughout our history. Only at certain times does it rear its head. When this happens our ugly racial history yields an ugly skirmish, the firestorm dies down, and we go back to normal trying to ignore the cultural third rail.

We’ve seen a skirmish the past couple weeks. I liken it to a Cold War era limited engagement. But like all war engagements it is an escalation that ends in bloodshed. The NAACP passed a resolution that condemned Tea Party racism. This prompted Tea Party elements to defend their dignity as not racists. The NAACP showed some racial signs in Tea Party crowds. Andrew Breitbart posted a tape of a NAACP event that seemed to show racial intolerance getting a welcome reaction by the crowd. But like most engagements, the crossfire enveloped a non-target. Breitbart says he never was targeting Shirley Sherrod, he was pointing out the reaction of her story by the audience. Nevertheless, Sherrod became a target and a thin-skinned White House forced her to resign her job because of an edited tape they hadn’t even seen. The NAACP, in direct contradiction of their acronym, shoved Sherrod out too, even though they possessed the full tape that would have proved her innocent of racial bias.

Eventually the tape did come out, albeit not fast enough to save Sherrod’s job. The apologies came fast and furious from the White House, the Agriculture Department. The point of Breitbart’s video ignored, the finger pointing has commenced. And so goes another chapter in America’s racial Cold War.