Racist assumptions of white liberals regarding urban blackness.

Much is being made by white liberals among the chattering classes of the cartoon image of Barack Obama as the Joker. One particularly revealing article was written by Liberal Washington Post writer Philip Kennicott attributing racism to the caricature. The base of the argument for racism was built on the claim that the black man is essentially an inner city urban dweller. That is, of course a racist caricature based on a misconception. In fact, according to the US census, only a 3% difference exists between “central city” blacks and non central city blacks. About 36% live in the suburbs and another 13% live outside of urban areas altogether. So the image of the black man as exclusively an urban dweller is a figment of the Liberal literary imagination.

We cannot, of course, expect any real knowledge of the black experience to be held by white Liberals. To them, blacks will always be the characters in an endless repeat of Leonard Bernstein’s “black panther” party so wonderfully skewered in Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic.”

In this case, Philip Kennicott was merely reaching for the nearest club of the guilty white Liberal, that always handy and well practiced cry of “racism,” which until recently was enough to destroy the opposition, rather like poison gas in World War 1. But to carry the analogy one step further, like poison gas, its effect is based on which way the wind is blowing. Today, the wind is blowing in the wrong direction and simply reveals the bloated corpse of the guilty, racist white Liberal.

Kennicott tries to make the point that people are beginning to fear Obama because he’s “black.” In reality, they are beginning to fear Obama because the person they thought they were voting for – the cool, good looking guy who transcended race and ideology promising a vague slogan of "Hope N' Change"– has been revealed as the Leftist who has nationalized the auto industry, gotten a hammerlock on the financial industry and is hell bent on nationalizing the health care industry – just for starters. I don’t know about Kennicott, but no one I know who voted in the last election voted for that. And now that cool, post-racial guy has his union thugs beating up the opposition and is inviting citizens to snitch on their neighbors. If that is not a cause for concern, I don’t know what is.

Meet Philip Kennicott; the gas was blowing in the wrong direction and he’s a dead man walking.