BY LINCOLN BROWN | P J MEDIA
(AP Photo, File)
If you jump
in the Wayback machine with Sherman and Mr. Peabody, you may
recall the presidency of one Barack Obama. And since most of our readers are
above the age of 13, I assume you can recall that period in American history.
During Obama’s presidency, anyone who dared to take umbrage with his policies
was automatically labeled a racist/white supremacist. You know the drill. That
particular presidential campaign took place shortly before my conversion to
conservatism. A good Lefty since birth, I was excited to see someone like Obama
electrify the masses with his soaring rhetoric. I remember telling my then
future wife that he was our generation’s JFK. Yeah, I know, don’t start with
me. I’ll show myself out when I’m done.
But I can
pinpoint the exact moment when I switched sides. I had been slowly drifting
right for a while, but couldn’t quite commit. That is until I heard Obama
announce his intention to bankrupt the coal industry. I didn’t live in coal
country at the time, but pretty close. Close enough to know how many people
would have their lives yanked out from under them. And some of those people
lived in very blue counties. That’s when I flipped. That’s when I finally had
to admit that the Left was in fact guilty of every filthy, self-serving,
narcissistic, and avaricious sin that it accused the Right of committing. And
of course by admitting to that, I apparently joined the ranks of the racists
who, according to Joe Biden, wanted to put black people back in chains. I
didn’t oppose Obama because of the color of his skin. I opposed Obama because
of his elitist worldview and because he exemplified the thing that upset me the
most. The Left was nothing at all what it pretended to be.
It was a very
strange thing for me to be labeled a racist. I grew up in a black neighborhood.
I was surrounded by black culture. The music I heard was from Parliament,
Bootsy Collins, Heatwave, Ohio Players, and later The Sugarhill Gang and a slew
of blues artists. That is not to say it was my music , but it
was the music I grew up on and when I hear it today, it brings back memories.
Yes, as a
short, skinny white kid with glasses, I got roughed up for the color of my skin
on occasion. I was even spit on and throat-punched once. But I also caught hell
from rich and poor white kids who were just jerks. And I had plenty of black
friends back in high school and beyond. Some were good friends, some were
casual acquaintances. As I have written before, my first girlfriend was black
and no one except my left-wing parents had a problem with it.
I launched my
radio show shortly after my conversion to conservatism and I remember someone
calling in and saying “Lincoln, they are going to call us racists no matter
what we do, so why should we care?” And he had a point. The word itself has
been bandied around so often that for many, it has lost its meaning. Unless, of
course, you are a member of the legacy media, a Democrat politician, or a
progressive. Then it remains the one and only shibboleth for
designating good from evil. These people are determined to mine racist nuggets
from every human heart and, if necessary, create conditions to nurture it where
it does not exist.
Case in
point: Betsy McCaughey’s article in the New York Post on the
injection of race-based care into the healthcare system. In a nutshell, certain
actors want to provide healthcare based on skin color, which includes denying
access to ventilators and intensive care units to white people. I’m not a
doctor and I don’t play one on TV, but I’m fairly certain that this is in
contravention of the Hippocratic Oath. I’ll leave it to you to peruse the
piece, but I will say that it is the intention of the proponents to ostensibly
foster equity. Ostensibly. The real reason is to generate social capital and
put themselves as far from harm’s way as possible during the systematic
destruction of America. And it is to create racism where it had not previously
existed.
Contrary to
popular belief, on my 18th birthday a cadre of white men did
not show up at my door, teach me a secret handshake, and give me a scholarship
and an AMEX card with no limit that I never needed to pay back. In fact, I
started my first real job in high school to help my family meet its bills. And
I paid for college by painting buildings and hauling garbage. And I spent years
paying off a student loan. But oddly enough, the people who want to accuse me
of racism seem to be extremely well-off and, in some cases, whiter than the
paper in your home printer. There are a hell of a lot of white people who would
not be welcome in the ranks of the one-percenters, no matter their political
beliefs.
I never
thought that black people were any more dangerous than white people. Experience
alone taught me that. And we have nothing to gain and everything to lose when
groups live in poverty. But I often wonder about the black people I knew in my
earlier years. Would they still call me their friend? Or would they call me a
racist and judge me guilty of crimes I never committed and of harboring
thoughts that never entered my head? Would they demand reparations for things I
never stole or did? Would I be a still be a friend or an enemy?
During my
time on the air, I frequently interviewed members of Project 21, a
group of black conservatives. Interestingly enough, a small percentage of the
conversations centered around race. As it turns out, black people have thoughts
about all kinds of things. Who knew–right, Democrats? Of course that is true
until the Left has something to say about it. And I know that the members
of Project 21 have taken more than their fair share of heat for bolting from
the progressive herd. Sadly, we have somehow evolved so far in our thinking
that we cannot share ideas without tying someone to the stake. And now, the
Left has found a way to bring their war to the hospitals and clinics. One can
almost hear them panting, waiting to screech “RACIST” at the top of their lungs
the moment someone raises an objection. Have we eliminated racism? Of course
not. And if some people on the Left have their way, it will be with us for the
foreseeable future.
In the ’50s
and ’60s–and to some degree the ’70s–the joke used to be that white people
would say “some of my best friends are black,” indicating latent racism. Well
thanks to progressives, in 2022 none of my best friends are black. And that is
a shame.
