A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Discussion on Race

I believe Barack Obama to be an honorable man with whom I vehemently disagree on nearly every single issue. (He's even a White Sox fan.) But the one thing I thought I might be able to rally behind my Commander-in-Chief on was race. The fact that a black man became president, Jesse Jackson did not like him, and he promised to help put racial divides behind us seemed something real conservatives could hang their partisan hats on after the election.

But where is the change? Not even in action, for I know these things take a while, but in spoken word where is the change we've been waiting for? I believe that Obama (and high-ranking members of his cabinet) continues to exasperate racial tensions at home and abroad with his rhetoric. The President's trip to Latin America this past week saw him yucking it up with foreign leaders such as Hugo Chavez who are openly racist and hostile towards the same white people that elected Barack Obama president...yet our leader says nothing.

Victor Davis Hanson, writing in "The Corner" on National Review Online, poses the question: "Can we get beyond race?"

Man, I sure hope so. President Obama holds in his hands the power to drastically re-shape the way Americans talk about race, but if he is serious about moving the nation "beyond race", he has some catching up to do. He's not just ACORN's president. He represents us all.