I don't think that the Liberals are really ready for that conversation on race.

In the minds of Liberals, a "conversation on race" is a monologue with the Liberal telling the white guy how racist they are. 

National Conversation = We Need to Talk = You Need to Shut Up While I Lecture You About Everything You've Done Wrong.

 

It’s about how bad Black people feel if they are tracked if they enter a store, about the sound of car doors locking if they walk past, about being stopped by the police when they’re innocent of wrongdoing. I have news flash for you: I’ve been thrown out of stores … and told to shut up in restaurants. My car doors lock themselves and I don’t care what color you are when they do it. If it bothers you, you have a problem and don’t make your problem mine. I an not responsible for other people's hypersensitive feelings.

I followed a police car away from a light once; he wasn't going after anyone, simply moving out fast.  I also took off, not noticing the speed sign and was stopped a block later for speeding. And even though I was steamed I was polite because there’s no percentage to mouthing off to a cop.

 

People of my ancestry and color were enslaved, occupied and gassed and I don’t hold it against the descendants of the people who committed these things because they’re not the ones responsible. If I did I’d be a nut and a jerk and I try to avoid being either one.

We know what the Liberal version is, at Villainous Company we have an inkling of what a real conversation on race would be like.

Pundits love to chide white Americans for their reluctance to speak honestly about race, but that reluctance should not surprise anyone. Attorney General Eric Holder, who commenced his last plea for honest racial dialog by calling the invitees "a nation of cowards", recently renewed the call for yet another national conversation about race; this time, one that is more open and presumably courageous. Mr. Holder (who is black) and our half black/half white President offered up memories of what they clearly presume to be uniquely black - and therefore uniquely painful - experiences: having people lock their car doors as you walk by, women clutching their purses in elevators, and perhaps most amusingly, "The Talk" (only) parents of black teens have with their sons about dealing with the police.

Victor Davis Hanson accepted Mr. Holder's invitation by offering up a few racial recollections of his own. His purpose, like that of Richard Cohen (who was quickly branded a racist), was to explain that the experiences cited by the President and Attorney General are all too often grounded in the actual (and painful) racial experiences of American whites. But rather than provoking that honest dialog Mr. Holder envisioned, the response to Mr. Hanson's recollections was aptly summed up in the title of Ta-Nehisi Coates' response: "It's the Racism, Stupid".

(Read the whole thing)

White experience with Black people is simply not allowed to be discussed. The Virginian Pilot had a couple of its (non-Black) reporters attacked by a mob of Black "yoots" a few years ago and tried to bury the story, claiming that the attack was simply not newsworthy. Actual experience, being mugged, robbed, punched out or burglarized can't be mentioned even when a minority commits a disproportionate amount of these crimes.  They are simply not allowed to be mentioned as part of the larger discussion of race relations in America.

Are Liberals really willing to have a conversation and after listening not dismiss experiences like this?

If we are to have that conversation, whites need to be willing to share their experiences and blacks need to be willing to listen. Here are my experiences with race:

I grew up in New England. When I was thirteen or so, my father was stationed in Washington DC area. Up until that time, my experience with blacks was limited to playing with the friend of a friend in 3rd grade. One of my most vivid memories is of lying in our bathing suits on my neighbor's lawn and holding hands as the sun warmed us. I will never forget looking at her hand in mine and marveling at the deep pink of her palms. My only other memory is of several encounters in the 4th and 6th grades with the lone black girl in my classes. Her name was Linda.

The fact that my very first experience with bullying involved that lone black girl was, to my way of thinking, just a coincidence. Yes, Linda relentlessly bullied the other girls on the playground, cutting in line, pushing people out of her way and grabbing the jump rope whenever she decided it was "her turn". Linda had two turns to everyone else's one. And yes, Linda hung around after school and repeatedly tried to draw me into fights. But that had nothing to do with the color of her skin. It was simply, I thought, that she was miserable and lonely. She had few friends. Given her personality, that wasn't surprising. Linda was like a fish out of water. A tiny white girl named Joy clung to her side like a remora. Linda didn't really like Joy, but even a parasite was better than being alone.

And this?

In the 7th grade we moved to DC. My new junior high had recently started bussing blacks from the city and rural whites from the surrounding farms into our middle class school district. For the first time, as I walked down the hallways between classes I was groped by black boys and often witnessed black-on-white fistfights. I was uncomfortable with the verbal backlash to this aggression and belligerence. But oddly, I never heard the much-discussed "n word" pass anyone's lips (black or white).

One day, leaving school, a large and vicious group of black girls began beating up another girl. I had never seen a group of kids beat up a lone victim, and it terrified me. At about this time, I lost a new jacket my mother had just bought me. It was very distinctive - a brightly colored plaid. I later saw it on a girl in one of my classes. She was at least two sizes larger than me, and the jacket's buttons were strained to the breaking point.

My name was inside that jacket, so there was no doubt that its new 'owner' knew exactly who it belonged to. Yet I didn't report it stolen. The girl was the one who had incited the group beating I had witnessed the week before. I got the message and suddenly, the jacket didn't seem worth having to fight off her numerous friends.

The next year, we moved to high school and the racial tensions continued. They were, so far as I could see, instigated by a small group of students. I had several black friends - students I shared classes with - so it was clear that not every black student in our school had a problem with whites.

But there is a hard, hard truth here. If it is acceptable for the President of the United States or the Attorney General to regale us with a remembered litany of racial slights, why is it racist and wrong for Victor Davis Hanson to share memories that left an imprint upon him? Why is it racist and wrong for me to do the same?

Yes, people like Cassandra quickly get the message.  Stick up for yourself and get a beating because the gang takes care of it's members and if you're not part of a gang nobody is going to come to your defense.  

Here’s something that I have observed by watching a Black family I know very well. They watch their kids like hawks. I often feel sorry for the kids, because I did not ride my kids that hard. But the reason for the super-strict attention they are getting is because these kids are being constantly seduced by a Black culture that tells them that getting good grades is “acting white,” that babies having babies is perfectly natural, that ripping off “The Man” is fine because of slavery, that getting in trouble is a rite of passage. Black kids without a strong family structure will succumb to the culture because that’s what’s hip and cool.

 

That call for a conversation on race is counterproductive because the venue is not going to allow a real, honest debate.   Perhaps once this generation dies and a new one emerges that doesn't have quite such a large contingent of people in the race industry, a conversation can be had.  Until then I join the  Liberals when they begin their monologues and say : "Shut up."