Tempus Fugit

What do you call someone who judges people by the color of the skin, or makes assumptions about people based on the way they look? Racist, prejudiced, ignorant, all of the above? Judging people because of their appearance is definitely unacceptable, so why are so many on the Left doing it?

Jay Tea of Wizbang hits the issue on the head with his tongue-in-cheek post about liberal stereotyping of black conservatives.

Some of the sheer venom and hatred and outright vile terms and epithets being hurled at these people (terms such as “house nigger,” “house slave,” “race traitor,” “whore,” “Uncle Tom/Aunt Jemima,” and “sellout” are among the milder ones I’ve seen) appalls me, and should likewise bother all of good conscience.

My instinct was to hurl myself into the fray and defend these worthies (Williams, obviously, excluded). But I set that aside in favor of striving not to be a warrior, but a peacemaker. With that in mind, I have prepared the following proposal.

I suggest that some of the leading liberal voices of the day (such as Kos, Atrios, and a few others — I’m not “up” on leading liberals) should get together and assemble a list of positions that minorities can and can not support. Once they have a list that they can all agree on, then it can be distributed to all minority commentators so they can see exactly what they can and cannot say, as spelled out in this “profile” of acceptable positions.

…

So, once we get everything hammered out, we can set aside this “traitor to your race” stuff and get people to behave exactly as they’re supposed to, with everyone’s politics clearly categorized by their race, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, or whatever else criteria people want to draw up.

It’ll certainly make it a lot easier to judge someone’s beliefs based simply on their appearance. In fact, this “pre-judging” could be a huge time-saver. I see great potential in the whole concept of “prejudice” in tidying up political discourse, and I have the above-mentioned liberals to thank for bringing it to my attention.

Wizbang: Minorities and conservative positions: a modest proposal

Why are minorities who dare to have a conservative world view treated with such disdain, such prejudice? My guess is that it is because the Democratic party is the party of socialism. It is the party of handouts and free lunches. Minorities who shun handouts are admitting that they don’t need big government’s help in life. I think Democrats fear that minority conservatives, as successful people, are going to act as an inspiration to other minorities, and a constituency the Democrat party has taken for granted will leave the plantation, en masse.

And why shouldn’t they? Being a Democrat is fine when you’re out of work or when you want to rely on the government for your needs. But if you are self-sufficient, socialism has nothing to offer you. Democrats seem to expect successful minorities to keep the “dependent” mindset when they’ve risen above dependence. They expect conservative minorities to keep beating the “equality” drum, even though they’ve succeeded in life despite any racial hardships they have faced. They expect those who have broken the cycle of dependence to remain with the people who have done nothing but perpetuated their own mediocrity by selling their vote to the highest bidder.

If liberals truly care about raising minorities up out of poverty, they should be lauding those who have made it, instead of trying to drag them back down.

And if you have nothing better to say on the matter than to call me “racist” for praising survivors instead of mourning victims, don’t bother commenting.