America’s first black president believes the United States still has not overcome the troubling racial issues of its past. Appearing on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” Monday night, Barack Obama claimed that “we have, by no means, overcome the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow and colonialism and racism.”
Two African-American leaders think that’s nonsense.
“Let me offer an extremely brief refresher course on actual, not virtual, racist policies,” said Ben Kinchlow, an exclusive WND columnist and the longtime co-host of CBN’s “The 700 Club.” “Give me an example of the existence of one of the following today: racial segregation of the blind, segregated schools and textbooks, segregated lunch counters, and even segregated cemeteries.”
As a young black man in the 1950s and 1960s, Kinchlow encountered all those racist policies. He was also required to step off sidewalks to let white women pass by, take off his hat when talking to a white man, and say “yes, sir” and “no, sir” when talking to young white boys.
“Because of segregated schools, the choice for me as a young high school student was 90 miles round trip to the closest black school, or being sent away to a boarding school,” Kinchlow told WND.
He further noted that one of the most prominent Democrat governors of the era, George Wallace of Alabama, once proclaimed his belief in “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”
“Compare that to the fact that we now have a black U.S. president, a black U.S. attorney general, a black first lady, a black Homeland Security Director, a black Supreme Court justice, black senators and congressmen, etc.,” said Kinchlow, author of “Black Yellowdogs.” “Offhand, I would say that America has overcome the legacies of the past. What more would have to be done to prove this point?”
Jesse Lee Peterson, a well-known radio host and founder of the nonprofit Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, believes Obama was actually trying to burnish his legacy by saying America has not overcome its racist past.
“Barack Obama is making a desperate attempt to create and hold onto what he thinks is a great legacy, and if he can keep that idea going that racism and slavery are still in existence, it will keep black folks supporting him, believing that he was under attack from the so-called ‘racist’ Republican politicians,” Peterson told WND.
Peterson, WND columnist and author of “The Antidote: Healing America From the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood,” said plenty of his fellow blacks are telling him Obama could have done more as president, but Republicans wouldn’t help him out because they are racist.
But Peterson blames Obama himself for creating that perception by constantly talking about America’s problems with race.
“This man is desperate right now, and that is what this is all about,” Peterson declared. “Slavery is over and it’s been over for over a hundred years, and it’s time for black people to get over the idea of slavery and move forward with their lives.”
Obama’s comments on “The Daily Show” came in response to host Trevor Noah’s question about how he speaks to crowds about race. The president remarked that “race continues to be this powerful factor in so many elements of our lives.”
Peterson said that’s only true for certain people.
“Only in the minds of the liberal race hustling Democrats, the leaders and the people who follow them,” he said. “They keep that going because that’s in their mind. It’s not in the mind of men and women who are individual thinkers, who are raising their families, who couldn’t care less about their color – it’s not in their minds. It’s only in the minds of those who are pushing this idea of racism.”
Kinchlow said Obama’s statement might have some credibility if there were a concrete example of “definitive, legal, specific racism,” like Kinchlow once experienced, against blacks today.
“The only reason that charges of ‘racism’ get a reaction is because the American people are not racist and they do all they can to demonstrate that fact,” Kinchlow declared. “They have proven this by the total rejection of the foregoing real examples of racism, and all other forms of racism that once existed. Again, what more must whites do to prove they are not racist?”
On “The Daily Show,” Obama stated his belief that “those who are not subject to racism can sometimes have blind spots or lack of appreciation of what it feels to be on the receiving end of that.”
But today’s generations of blacks does not know what true racism feels like, either, according to Kinchlow.
“White people can be subjected to reverse racism from those who have no clue as to what genuine, bona fide racism is,” he insisted. “You can accuse people of something that does not exist if you have no real concept of what you are accusing them of and your accusations are not based in fact.”
When Peterson heard the president say “those who are not subject to racism,” he took that as a suggestion that black people can’t be racist toward whites.
“Blacks have been told that by their race-hustling leaders, that black people can’t be racist because they don’t own anything, and that only white people can be racist,” Peterson said. “So Obama is still furthering that idea that only white people can be racist, without a doubt.
“And it’s bad for him to do that because it’s a continuation of the brainwashing of black Americans, which is going to continue to keep them down from generation to generation and is going to keep the races divided in this country. We will never become one nation under God as long as this phony idea is out there.”
