Dissappointment in the Administration...ctd

I just wanted to highlight this post by Ta-Nehisi Coates, because I feel this line absolutely encapsulates the feeling of rage I feel during "Sherrod-gate" (emphasis added Ben Smith):

The argument has been made that this isn't Obama, just the people working under him. That theory elides the responsibility of leaders to set a tone. The tone that Obama has set, in regards to race, is to retreat with great velocity in the face of anything that can be defined as "racial." Granted, this has been politically smart. Also granted, Obama has done it with nuance. But it can not be expected that the president's subordinates will share that nuance.

More disturbingly, this is what happens when you treat the arrest of a black man, in his home, as something that can be fixed over beers. This is what happens when you silently assent to the notion that racism and its victims are somehow equally wrong. The ground, itself, is rigged with a narrative of inversion that goes back centuries. When you treat the two side as equals, expect not just more of the same. Expect worse. ...

On the great American scourge of racism, this administration must stand, sometimes publicly, for something. Failing that it will fall — indeed, already has fallen — for anything.

I think this is the thrust of it. If we want to talk about race in this country we need to do it. Horrible things were done to minorities over the years, and the rise of the "reverse racism" charge needs to be put in its proper place.

Update: Thought this post by Adam Serwer provides a much better analysis then I could.

For all the sound and fury, Breitbart's video was nothing more than an alibi, an attempt to collectively exonerate the right from a charge of racism by turning it back on the NAACP. This is the precise origin of the oppositional culture developed by some conservatives in the aftermath of the 2008 election. It is broadly premised on convincing conservatives they face a similar kind of institutional racism black people have faced throughout history, while maintaining that the sole obstacle to black advancement is the same culture of grievance they're so desperate to imitate. Glenn Beck saying today's America is "like the 1950s except the races are reversed," isn't an observation; it's a demand for absolution. This is the same selfish white guilt rightly mocked when possessed by liberals, curdled into a bitter stew of defensive anger and epic self-pity. Yet even Beck thinks Sherrod was wronged.

[emphasis added mine]. That pretty much sounds correct to me. As someone who has been followed around a store, for simply browsing and been stopped 3 times in the span of 4 city blocks, because they "fit a description", this is all very illuminating to me.

-Cheers