There was a time when there was genuine prejudice against black people in America, and many people suffered as a result. Everyone can agree on that. However, to their credit, most Americans have changed their attitudes. And today discrimination of the basis of race is a crime or a civil cause of action.
Maybe there are examples of racism around today, but judging from all the blanks fired by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, those examples are hard to find.
But this time the alleged racist is Mitt Romney who spoke to an audience at the NAACP convention and said he wanted to end many expensive government programs, including "Obamacare," the offending word which drew a smattering of boos from the audience members and charges of race baiting in the Daily Beast. (This comes to us via Tim Carney.)
The false charge of racism has been leveled at white people so many times that it has lost its impact. So who is supposed to be moved by this? It has to be the people who swung the election toward Obama in 2008 but who now seem unmoved to do it again. The Obama team must think that if they build a big enough fire under them maybe they'll get motivated to help him again.
Rational Americans can see through that, however, and are not likely to let President Obama's own race baiting set race relations back. "Turn the clock back for Obama" is not a winning slogan.
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