Romney’s courage

Background reading

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18801596
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/11/romney-naacp-speech-audience-photos_n_1665451.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=071212&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172593/Mitt-Romney-deliberately-got-booed-NAACP-appeal-white-racists.html

What should we make of the audience at the national convention in Houston of the National Association for the Advance of Colored People booing the apparent Republican nominee for president for about 15 seconds during his speech there? Or about the very brief applause for his comments on same-sex marriage?

What really bothers me is not that the NAACP audience booed when Mitt Romney said that he wanted to work to repeal some of the expensive social welfare programs like the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). The booing did not surprise me at all. In fact, in a way, I have to commend him for going into the “lion’s den”, since the NAACP has been for, in at least my memory, a bastion of support for the Democratic Party.

No, what bothers me, and dismays me, is to see Euro-American progressives attack Romney for allegedly cynically going to the NAACP convention because he wanted video of Afro-Americans booing him so he could appeal to racist white Americans. No less than the former speaker of the House, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi was one of the progressives making the charge, plus one of the progressive hosts on the Left’s “answer” to Fox News, MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell.

Give me a break. Not that it probably might have crossed the mind of someone on Romney’s staff, I find it difficult to believe that is the reason he went to speak at the NAACP meeting.

Still, what bothers me even more is the implied assumption, that if that was his motive, that these white Euro-Americans thought their black Afro-Americans would be stupid enough to let themselves be used in such a way.

Now, I have personal experience in such situations. Way back when, when I was in college, I had the opportunity to attend the first speech given by then-President Richard Nixon on a major college campus after the US incursion into Cambodia during the Vietnam War. That was an interesting experience. I was proud to have been part of that experience – which was billed as part of Kansas State University’s Landon Lecture series – and extremely disappointed the President Nixon chose not to follow the Landon protocol … as were probably 15,000 other students who jammed the field house that day. Actually, we were quite angry. While we had respectfully given him his 25 minutes to make his speech, he – quite disrespectfully we felt – did not honor his part of the protocol and remain on stage for a like amount of time to answer questions. That violation of protocol was what made the students angry, especially since most of us did not agree with the war in Vietnam.

My point being here that the people at the NAACP meeting had every right to boo or applaud Mr. Romney … but to accuse them of being puppets to their political opponents is to demean them in the most bigoted fashion.

In certain circles, the Democratic Party – led as it is by wealthy white Euro-American progressives - has been accused of adopting a “plantation” mentality toward black voters: You do what we tell you (vote for us into office) and we will take care of you. You needn’t bother to think or be responsible for yourself.

To me, Pelosi’s and O’Donnell’s comments illustrate this point rather well.

Actually, I respect the NAACP for inviting Mr. Romney to speak … and for the most part, even if his speech did not pander to them or tell them precisely what they wanted hear (some of the time), the audience was indeed respectful, although somewhat hostile.

Compare that to the fear-mongering in Vice President Joe Biden’s speech where he claimed the Republicans were going to reverse the civil rights advances of the last 50 years and, I guess, bring back the Jim Crow-law era. This was pandering to the fears of some black Americans as well as promising them that the federal government would redistribute wealth to them. Well, I am sorry, but a) I don’t see any “rollback” of civil rights coming. Call me what you will, but I really don’t see that happening. And b) I think it is demeaning to African-Americans to suggest it is going to happen if the “entitlement” society we are creating is stopped or even rolled back.

I would hope, if I were a proud African-American, that I would rather be judged on my own merit and not on the basis of my skin. What was it Martin Luther King said? Something about content of one’s character, rather than one’s skin color.

Granted, the world is not all fairness and squareness, but it is one heck of a lot better than it was when I was a child. And, to be honest, there are those of us who say enough is enough. I have no problem giving someone a break if they have been discriminated against, but that is an individual thing and does not extend to a whole race or community. There comes a time, and I would hope that we have reached it, that racial identity politics would be passé.

However, looking at how this political season is developing, it is obvious to me that I am wrong … and it bothers me that it is the Democratic party and the progressives who are proving the most close-minded … just the thing that they are accusing Republicans, conservatives and the Tea Party people of being.