Recent authoritative reports have told this story about our Attorney General:
"For much of his life, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. carried around …an old clipping of a quote from Harlem preacher Reverend Samuel D. Proctor …Proctor’s words …“Blackness is another issue entirely apart from class in America. No matter how affluent, educated and mobile [a black person] becomes, his race defines him more particularly than anything else.”…When asked to explain the passage, Holder replied, “It really says that …"I am the black United States Attorney."
Invidious racism is wrong under all circumstances. It's shockingly wrong when directed toward oneself. It's one thing to unreasonably discriminate against others due to their race. It's quite another to invidiously value oneself due to one's own race.
How can a society ever achieve racial equality and harmony if people go around thinking they are primarily identified by the color of their skin? And, how stupid is that in the first place? Who would consciously want the color of their skin to represent their worth or station in life? Only an idiot.
Race is a fact of life. We need to learn how to deal with it reasonably. If I ask to speak to someone, and describe him as a tall, thin, black man with a mustache, that should be perfectly OK. The same holds true if someone describes me as a white guy with short hair. Some of us are identifiable as white, some as black. So what? That's merely an accurate, informative description. It should carry no judgmental value whatsoever. Anyone who would assign value to such mundane information is clearly pursuing a personal agenda of suspect character. Bigotry, hatred, jealously, fear and other such unsavory motivators are undoubtedly behind their attitude.
How disturbing! We have the highest law enforcement official in our country outing himself as a racial bigot. How can we excuse a man of his education and background assigning overwhelming importance to the color of his skin? It's beyond shocking, it's outrageous. And most disquieting is the fact that he apparently sees nothing wrong with it, as if determining self image by the color of one's skin is normal behavior. It's truly ghastly.
That places Mr. Holder squarely in the company of the Arian Brotherhood, Black Muslims, and other racially based hate groups. Assuming that the clipping he carried for so many years accurately reflects his views on race, he has no business being our Attorney General. In fact, it's people like him that our Department Of Justice should be scrutinizing.