When it comes to assessing the current racial situation in America, our friends on the Left have been playing a game of one-upmanship in their assaults on our country’s character for over a decade. When Hillary Clinton pleaded in 2016, “Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of young black and Latino men and women who face the effects of systemic racism,” it marked the first time a major presidential candidate had used the term “systemic racism,” as the media applauded. From that development, Democrats evolved to the point where candidates such as Beto O’Rourke declared just three years later that America is “Racist at its foundation.” Using that same trajectory, we could reasonably expect that in another four years leftist Democrats and their media will be equating America to hell itself. And if we’re fortunate enough to have a Republican elected president in 2024, he or she will likely be portrayed as Satan as the mainstream media yearns for the good old days of reasonable Republicans like Donald Trump.
Yet when we consider the results of the last four presidential elections spanning twelve tumultuous years, we see an obvious counterargument staring us in the face. Since 2008, America has twice elected a racial minority to the highest office in the land in President Barack Obama, and it appears likely that we have just elected the first woman and another racial minority to the second-highest office, in presumptive Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris. Considering that the racial group to which both Obama and Harris belong makes up only 13% of America’s electorate, it would seem highly illogical to conclude that a racist society would elect those candidates to such high offices in three-out-of-four elections, would it not? And if not, one would think there must be an abundance of examples of other, ‘non-racist’ countries that we can look to as models.
It’s an interesting question to consider: has any other country elected two separate individuals from a significant racial minority to the two highest offices in that country, at least one of whom is female? Ever? Spend an hour or four exploring the internet, and you’re unlikely to find a single example. Broaden the criteria to eliminate the qualification of gender, and your results probably won’t change. In fact, there are very few examples of another country electing even one racial minority to lead them. There are a few scattered instances of countries having elected ethnic minorities. For instance, France elected Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, who claims Hungarian and Greek ethnicity in addition to French. As for actual racial minorities, two of the very few countries that have indeed elected a racial minority as leader don’t exactly inspire imitation.
In 1990, Peru elected Alberto Fujimori to be their president, an office he held until 2000. As the son of Japanese immigrants Fujimori was indeed a racial minority, and while his presidency was a lengthy one, we should consider other aspects of his legacy. Fujimori attempted a military power grab, was later forced to flee the country, and was eventually extradited back to Peru where he served six years in prison. The other country we can point to that elected racial minorities is South Africa, which repeatedly elected members of the white minority throughout their policy of apartheid; one of the most indisputably racist governmental systems in recent memory. Indeed, finding examples worthy of emulating are difficult to find – other than our own.
This exercise in looking outward for examples to follow is fruitless. Even if we look at countries that the Left adores such as Canada, South Korea, Germany and the Socialist-but-not-really-Socialist Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Sweden, racial minorities being elected to lead their country almost never happens. Should we therefore conclude that those countries are racist, even more so than what the Left accuses America of being? Of course not. There may be isolated examples of racism being the primary driver behind the phenomenon, but there’s a much more likely scenario: perhaps those countries that have never elected a racial minority to lead them have actually focused on the qualifications of the individuals they’ve elected. Maybe they vote for the individual who will do the best job, without regard for the person’s gender, race, or sexual preference. There’s a novel idea.
America has now elected a black man president, not once but twice. We have apparently now elected a black woman as vice-president, with a very real possibility of her becoming our next president. But this hasn’t slowed down the accusations of racism, or sexism for that matter, from our friends on the Left. If anything, these results seem to have emboldened them as they double-down and intensify their rhetoric of identity politics.
Earlier this month, and in fact four days after the election when it was apparent that the Biden/Harris ticket was indeed the likely winner, former First Lady Michelle Obama, a respected leader within the Democratic party stated on Twitter, “Let’s remember that tens of millions of people voted for the status quo, even when it meant supporting… hate… and division.” So, the woman whose racial minority husband was elected president twice asserts that 72 million Americans are guilty of “hate” just because we voted for President Trump. We can only speculate whether or not she was laughing as she typed those words.
The true motivation behind the Left’s strategy is clear. Their thought process: If we just keep accusing our opponents of being bad people, it will keep them on the defensive and we won’t have to defend our policies and ideas. Is it easier to justify supporting the outlandish Green New Deal and its proposed $93 trillion of new spending, or to arbitrarily label climate change itself as racist? Is it easier to explain why abolishing ICE and opening our border makes sense for Americans, or to just accuse President Trump and anyone who disagrees with you of racist motives? Is it easier to defend why it makes sense to defund the police and thereby welcome rampant crime, or to simply bloviate about make-believe systemic racism and dramatically overstate the existence of racist police brutality? The Left enjoys a media that it is in lockstep with their agenda and approach, meaning they can make outlandish allegations without worrying about being challenged on their veracity, so they take the path of least resistance and play the race card at every opportunity.
Along with scores of other countries, America’s past includes the abomination of slavery, the single-most reprehensible aspect of our complex history. But our history also includes 360,222 soldiers, the vast majority of whom were white, who died fighting for the Union during the Civil War to end slavery. The next hundred years saw actual systemic racism – not the imaginary variety – in the form of segregation and Jim Crow, more repugnance that was corrected with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a law that was enacted with votes by almost entirely white men. Undoubtedly, America’s past is not perfect, but we have consistently taken steps to right our wrongs. Those steps have resulted in the election of racial minorities to the highest offices in our country becoming commonplace. No, America is not racist, but we are instead showing the rest of the world once again what true freedom and equality looks like. God bless America.
PF Whalen. Follow Gen Z on Parler, Gab, and Facebook
CLICK HERE TO SHOP ON THE CONSERVATIVE ALTERNATIVE TO AMAZON!
