The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 14)

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I stopped being hopeful regarding the issue of "Race" in America quite some time ago. As to a dialogue, we have been listening to a one-way dialogue on race from people of color for the last 50 years. I was a High School senior when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed by congress, so I am not unfamiliar with the struggle. But "dialogue" suggests point and counterpoint; give and take; mutual learning; etc. Us "Typical White People" (heretofore referred to as TWP's) have finally learned to shut up when it comes to the subject of race. Any open disagreement with a person of color automatically nets you the label of "racist." I am a second generation American of Russian-German extraction (my ancestors immigrated to Russia from Germany during the reign of Peter and Katherine the Great).

p>My family were a hardy farming people imported by the Tsar to farm the Steppes along the Volga River. Their issue subsequently immigrated (legally) to the United States of America after the Bolsheviks murdered more than a million ethnic Germans and imprisoned many more between 1917 and 1930. To my considerable knowledge (my father did an extensive investigation of our ethnic history) none of my ancestors was involved in any way with the slave trade between Africa and the Americas; none of my ancestors ever owned or sold slaves (although they were certainly familiar with slave labor in Russian Siberia); none of my ancestors assisted in enacting or enforcing Jim Crow laws; I was often lectured by my father to avoid using any pejorative when referring to people who did not look like or behave like we looked and behaved. He regularly cautioned that there are many legitimate reasons why people looked and acted in ways that were different from us. In short I do not feel any responsibility for racism in America, nor for the eminently disgusting behavior of racists of every stripe (black and white, and some other colors too), who continually regale us with their vitriol. But I do know a racist when I see and hear one. Mr. Obama has revealed himself to us TWP's and I will vote accordingly. br> -- Ron Adolph br> Sanger, California /p>

Thank you a lot for letting me read your article on Obama's race speech. Yes, I accept Obama's invitation to talk about race. But such a dialogue can't be neither from the Afro-American point of view, nor under what Obama is trying to sell us: that is has to be HE, or nothing.

America is not Black and White anymore. America is also Brown, and Yellow. Race has issues to be discussed. But there are also, sub issues to discuss within each race. Obama should consider that it took us 400 years to reach here, and he won't have more than 4 or 8 years to fix it. We want to vote a President, not God.

p>What a shame. I feel Obama is just fraud. br> -- Max Diaz /p>

Tom is uncertain of Obama's position on affirmative action -- which is strange, given how far we are into the campaign. And, has Obama been asked his position on slavery reparations?

How much do we owe for causing HIV? For 9-11? How much do owe for nuking Hiroshima? (This last one is priceless: We're racists for nuking Hiroshima; non-racist Japan gets to sneak attack Pearl Harbor for free.)

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