Shame on Harry Reid

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should be ashamed of himself for his disgusting race-baiting comments all but calling his Senate GOP colleagues racists.

He hopes they oppose Obama “based on substance and not the fact that he's an African American."

Who is he kidding?

This is the same theme used by Obama supporters since he became president — oppose the president and you must be a racist.

This is the same Harry Reid of Nevada who once referred to Obama as a “light skinned African American “with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

That’s how the Democrat really thinks.

And what has been the Republican response?

As far as I know, Tim Scott, R-S.C. — the only black Republican in the Senate — is the lone Republican to blast Reid’s comments.

So where are the other Republicans?

As usual, they just turn the other cheek and don’t fight the race-baiting chorus.

Maybe it’s time for black Republicans and conservatives to stop being first at bat to defend the GOP and white conservatives on matters of race when they do not speak up and fight back themselves.

Where are the Senate minority leader, House speaker and RNC chairman? Hiding behind Senator Scott? Where are the white Democrats in Congress — and the president — hiding behind the Black Caucus?

I assume from their silence that they agree with Reid.

Many feel that the GOP is utterly gutless when it comes to race baiting attacks like Reid’s.
Their actions or lack thereof, make it hard for black conservatives and Republicans to even attempt to carry their water or defend them — and have any credibility! Maybe it’s time to let them fend for themselves!

Reid’s comments are a great example of why race relations have plummeted during the Obama years.

Remember that his election was seen by many liberals as the dawning of a “post racial” society.

According to a recent NBC/Wall St. Journal poll, attitudes on race and race relations are anything but “post racial” and have dropped like a rock since Obama took office.
Negative views on race have increased.

According to the poll, 45 percent of whites and 58 percent of blacks now believe race relations are very or fairly bad, compared to 2009 when only 20 percent of whites and 30 percent of blacks held an unfavorable view.

Given Reid’s remarks and these poll results, can we put an end to talk about having a “conversation on race?”

It would clearly be a waste of time.

From the very beginning of his presidency, the president and his attorney general were held harmless from any and everything. Criticize them at the risk of being called a racist.

Most black leaders who say they want a conversation on race really want one only if whites or blacks do not dare criticize any lifestyles or pathologies in the black community.
Just ask Fox’s Bill O’Reilly.

He was bitterly attacked when he accurately pointed out key issues facing black America including 70 plus percent out of wedlock births, black-on-black murders. He challenged civil rights leaders, the president and rap artists to step up to the plate.

He was roundly criticized.

Then comes Congressman Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., who described the tea party to the Daily Beast as  “. . . the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police . . .”

This was his way of having a conversation on race?

No, conversations on race have to be a one way street — telling how bad whites are with no mention of some filthy rap lyrics, hoodlum attire, dropout rates, or any discussion of black responsibility, notwithstanding that racism still exits.

Let three white teens be shown beating a black kid as three blacks did to a white teen recently and there would be hell to pay.

But, no outcry from the Sharpton’s, Jackson’s, the race brigade or the mainstream media.
Black politicians, civil rights leaders and white liberal journalists will never gain credibility or respect — or be able to have a discussion on race — until they stop the racial demagoguery.

Given the polls and the public’s attitudes on race, it is clear that the American people are not fools. They know hypocrisy, racial demagoguery and race baiting when they see it.

We are mere weeks away from the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Dr. King’s famous “I have a Dream” speech.

It is ironic and a bit sad that the first black president and his Senate majority leader have not overseen a “post racial” society as the polls show. They and their followers have given us a society more racially divided than it has been in decades.

Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political and media relations consulting firm in Florida. He held several positions in the Reagan administration as well as the Reagan presidential campaigns and has appeared on many national and local media outlets. Read more reports from Clarence V. McKee — Click Here Now.