Feb 18, 2009 06:15 PM
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Wed Feb 10
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Attorney General Eric Holder just raised our hopes for his tenure: at a speech to his Justice Department, he called the United States "a nation of cowards." Holy shit!
Specifically, we are a nation of cowards when it comes to "talking about race." He's apparently never seen the internet—if he had he'd know that we're a nation of retards. But in the larger, more polite public sphere, he is completely right.
"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," said Holder, nation's first black attorney general.
Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, Holder said, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
[...]
"Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad," said Holder.
B-b-but Attorney General Holder, haven't you heard that some of White America's best friends are black? No, seriously, they even tell pollsters about it!
ABC News polls show there has been sharply increased social interaction between black and white Americans in the past few decades. In June, 79 percent of whites reported having a "fairly close personal friend" who's black, up from 54 percent in 1981. Ninety-two percent of blacks reported having a white friend, up from 69 percent a generation ago.
Similarly, a 2005 poll found that 48 percent of whites and 63 percent of blacks said someone in their family had brought a friend of the other race home for dinner — also far higher than when the data series began in 1973.
Problem: solved!
Besides, we elected a black president, so obv we are all cool with each other. We hope you guys enjoy your little history month!
Oh, Drudge has linked to this, so the OUTRAGE can begin! First out of the gate is Jonah Goldberg, the man who called FDR a fascist in a best-selling book. He finds the speech "both hackneyed and reprehensible" because people always make people talk about race too much as it is and he's sick of it! Of course he weighed in before he actually read the speech. Afterwards he is ok with it but he reserves the right to be really outraged about it again, later.
Have at it, cowards!
Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.
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