Eric Holder was right: Americans are afraid to talk about Race

[BirminghamExaminer]

Excerpt:

A couple of weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder made a speech during Black History month that stirred up controversy among pundits and bloggers on the right and on the left. Most people latched on to one sentence of a long speech and ran with it without explaining the context of or what the speech was about.

Attorney Holder said, "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards...."

In the very next sentence, Holder went on to say that, "we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race." And that is what the speech was about. It is unfortunate that many in cable news and the blogosphere took the one sentence that had the toxic word, "cowards" in it and ignored the intent of the speech and, in fact, the entire rest of the speech which is 2332 words long.

A lot was written on right wing blogs about how Attorney Holder is himself a racist by writers who it seemed deliberately misconstrued the meaning of the speech. Attorney Holder made the case that average Americans have been afraid to talk about race. Had he used the term, "afraid" instead of "coward", it's likely there wouldn't have been such an uproar by right wing spin propagandists like Michael Savage who said of the speech that Holder had said 'Americans were cowardly racists.'

To read the rest of the article which includes several recent racist events and why we should talk about race, please click here. I welcome comments. Thanks.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Growing up in the military community and being a sportsfan has made me very comfortable...

talking to blacks and talking to blacks about race. There's often humor. When I walk the streets wearing my NYMets Mookie Wilson jersey, people honk and wave at me. They're often black, much to the surprise of my friends.

So many whites I know are so afraid of blacks they just freeze up. They miss out on a lot.

[BirminghamExaminer]

2. This sounds cliche, but

I have a very good friend who is black but she seems more uncomfortable than I am about talking about race. I have other black friends but the one I'm closest too is very uncomfortable talking about race.

[Captain Hilts]

3. People of all colors are individuals, aren't they? nt