The Politics of Race....Our Country needs to move on to solving the larger issues

I find the politicizing of race very disturbing....I have found that you have to take people one at a time. The people I met from all around the world while working overseas demonstrated to me that it doesn't matter where you are from, what gender you are or what nationality you proclaim, there are good people all over our small & beautiful planet......

The other side of that coin is that being a knucklehead is NOT exclusively assigned to any one race, gender or nationality either.....plenty of meat-heads out there of all shapes & sizes in many nations.... Read a sample of what is being passed off as "fact" by those who profit off the continuing discourse between ethnic groups:

The Village Voice is running a piece titled, "White America Has Lost Its Mind
- The white brain, beset with worries, finally goes haywire in spectacular fashion"

This has got to be some of the most racist crap ever allowed to be printed by a large news organization.....If you had written something similar about any other group than white America (pick a color), you would be hung out to dry in a NY heartbeat. But because we are taking a potshot at the majority of Americans, it's OK to print this tripe.

From the AFL-CIO NOW Blog:

"AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka points out that the America the Republicans envision doesn’t look like the real America, with barely 2 percent of the images in the “Pledge to America” document depicting people of color. In the real America, the Census Bureau reported people of color made up 34 percent of the population last year."

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/10/08/republican-pledge-would-make-life-worse-for-people-of-color/

Turns out the "facts" that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka cites is false - The US Cencus Bureau states are that 74.3% of Americans are "white", with the remainder (25.7%) of other ethnic groups. His Union profits from stirring up racial politics to keep his members in lock-step and under his control.

The point I am making is that the use of RACE by anyone in politics is deplorable. Those who continue to use their status as minority can be and are also as guilty of racism as much as though who hold views that minorities should not be allowed to participate.

Gov. George Wallace of Alabama was a racist - Rev. Al Sharpton is also a racist. Both have committed deplorable acts that have no part in American Politics. Until we can make sure that racists on both side of the equation, along with anyone (regardless of race or gender) who uses race as a means of profit are discredited and universally condemned, we will be dragged down by these cretins.

I have spent years defending our country in uniform and we are a argumentative bunch....No one group holds the title of "virtuous" and no one group can be blamed for all the ills of society.

Last week there was another large gathering on the mall at Washington, mainly run by the Liberal Groups, those who support illegal immigration and featured a speech by Al Sharpton. The people who organized this gathering have a large investment in keeping race issues stirred up, as it provides them with a very lucrative living by making sure Sharpton, et al are always there to speak against the "alleged" racial bias that occurred (Any one remember Tiwanna Brawley and how Al Sharpton was up to his armpits in perpetuating the lies that were told??)

I feel that anyone who sets his mind to make something of himself will do well - blaming race & gender for your shortcomings is pointless. The number of successful minorities in all areas of our country & world shows that it is not about race or gender but the individual who is willing to make the extra effort.

If you look at the number of successful people of all races who made something of themselves by focusing on doing the best at what they liked to do, then the crap the Al Sharptons of the world put out becomes laughable....he is a shyster, a charlatan....his words are meaningless.

My views on the way things should be fall back on the great words of JFK & Martin Luther King, as they set the standard with their insightful ability to move past the issues of race & gender:

President Kennedy - " We are confronted primarily with a moral issue,' he said. 'It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities … One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free … Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise … The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand … A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all … Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law." - June 11th 1963

Martin Luther King - " I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character... "

While I do not agree with all the views of MLK, this is one he got right. I agree wholly with President Kennedy as his words speak truth.

Criticism of our present President is NOT RACISM....He is the President, and his political views are his....I criticize his view of how things should be, as he doesn't represent the majority of American's points of view on where our country should be heading. Solely based on his merits as a Leader, I rate him as a failure. His race has nothing to do with it and I would criticize anyone else who shares his views, like Pelosi, Reed and Napolitano....they are all equally wrong regardless of their race or gender.

Suffice to say as long as the press props up the politics of race baiting, we will have issues. It needs to stop as we are a better people and a better country. There are bigger issues that need out attention and to allow the leaders of either party to focus on Race when we have much larger problems to solve is regrettable. We are all Americans and we can be better.