Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer carries an editorial that may have been written to the tune of "Ding, dong the witch is dead" while proclaiming the end of racism in America. Written by Tom Atkins, publisher of something called commonconservative.com (emphasis on the word common), White guilt? Done; over; history, who shrilly declares:

The Era of White Guilt is over.

This seemingly impossible event occurred because the vast majority of white Americans didn't give a fluff about skin color and enthusiastically pulled the voting lever for a black man. Not just any black man. A very liberal black man who spent his early career race-hustling banks, praying in a racist church for 20 years, and actively working with America-hating domestic terrorists. Yet white Americans made Barack Obama their leader. Therefore, as of Nov. 4, 2008, white guilt is dead.

So today, I'm feeling a little "uppity," if you will. For more than a century, the millstone of white guilt hung around our necks, retribution for slave-owning predecessors. In the 1960s, American liberals began yanking that millstone while sticking a fork in the eye of black Americans, exacerbating the racial divide to extort a socialist solution to the country's problems. But if a black man can become president, exactly what significant barrier is left? The election of Barack Obama destroys the validation of liberal white guilt. The dragon is hereby slain.

So today, I'm feeling a little "uppity," if you will. From this day forward, my tolerance level for having my skin color hustled is exactly ZERO. No more Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "God Damn America," Al Sharpton's Church of Perpetual Victimization, or Jesse Jackson's rainbow racism. Cornel West? You're a fraud. All those "black studies" programs must now teach kids to thank Whitey. And I want that on the final.

* * * *

No more quotas. No more handouts. No more complaining that "the man" is keeping you down. "The man" is now black.

Gee, this man definitely has serious issues, as they say. He sure sounds like some sarcastic sad sack, with a few anger issues thrown in. He may believe that white guilt is over, but he proves that extreme ugly is not. Perhaps he might be someone down on his luck -- a realtor in a bad market, perhaps?

Of course, while he was busily penning his rant, I don't suppose that Atkins happened to read the rest of the Inky lately -- such as the parts describing the racist acts that recently occurred recently at St. Joseph's University and La Salle University here in Philly? At La Salle, several black students said they were assaulted and subjected to racial slurs that after the presidential election. There was also a drawing of a stick figure in a noose that was found in a classroom at St. Joe's. See 2 universities probe racial incidents. See also, Hate crimes up on campuses, group says. But hey, maybe those guys just didn't get the message yet.

Of course, I guess he also missed those articles reporting that the election has caused a significant increase in race-related incidents? Obama election spurs race threats, crimes. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, After Obama's win, white backlash festers in US:

The election of America's first black president has triggered more than 200 hate-related incidents, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center – a record in modern presidential elections. Moreover, the white nationalist movement, bemoaning an election that confirmed voters' comfort with a multiracial demography, expects Mr. Obama's election to be a potent recruiting tool – one that watchdog groups warn could give new impetus to a mostly defanged fringe element.

Most election-related threats have so far been little more than juvenile pranks. But the political marginalization of certain Southern whites, economic distress in rural areas, and a White House occupant who symbolizes a multiethnic United States could combine to produce a backlash against what some have heralded as the dawn of a postracial America. In some parts of the South, there's even talk of secession.

"Most of this movement is not violent, but there is a substantive underbelly that is violent and does try to make a bridge to people who feel disenfranchised," says Brian Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. "The question is: Will this swirl become a tornado or just an ill wind? We're not there yet, but there's dust on the horizon, a swirling of wind, and the atmospherics are getting put together for [conflict]."

And that newly constructed black church that burned down on election eve? A Time of Hope, Marred by an Act of Horror. I suppose that's one way to eliminate those segregated churches.

Thankfully racism is a thing of the past. If that's the case, the only thing we need to rid ourselves of are conservative haters, like Atkins. Without the vile, angry, hate-filled whining of conservatives, life would be good.

(Via Crooks and Liars, since I no longer read the opinion page of the Inquirer).