Obama Plays Race Card as More Blacks Are Elected

The New York Times has an important article up tonight, the implications of which will be dismissed by those who insist on making allegations of racism against those who speak critically of Barack Obama.

As the Times reports, black officials in state governments across the country are steadily working their way to successful careers in politics, and the remarkable change here is that white majority constituencies are supporting them:

Political analysts say [black] electoral gains are quietly changing the political landscape, increasing the number of black lawmakers adept at crossing color lines as well as the ranks of white voters who are familiar, and increasingly comfortable, with black political leadership.

The black officials, who often serve in small- and medium-size towns, have been overshadowed by the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who if elected would be the first African-American to hold that office.

But over the last 10 years, about 200 black politicians have won positions once held by whites in legislatures and city halls in states like New Hampshire, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee.

In 2007, about 30 percent of the nation’s 622 black state legislators represented predominantly white districts, up from about 16 percent in 2001, according to data collected by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group based in Washington that has kept statistics on black elected officials for nearly 40 years.

Political scientists and local officials also point to an increase in the number of black mayors who represent predominantly white cities in places like Asheville, N.C., population 74,000, and Columbus, Ohio, population 748,000. According to a study conducted by Zoltan L. Hajnal, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, about 40 percent of Americans have lived in or near cities that have elected black mayors or in states with black governors.

According to the report, black office-seekers still represent primarily minority communities, but the statistics indicate a startling transformation toward color-blind political representation across large segments of the nation.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama's campaign has made systematic use of racial allegations to propel a candidacy that at one time based its appeal on post-racial transcendence.

Mark Levin has more on this, and the contrast between objective black progress and opportunistic race-baiting is just astounding:

Barack Obama's campaign has managed to paint Geraldine Ferraro, Bill Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin as racists. Meanwhile, how dare anyone suggest that Obama's voluntary association with a racist pastor for 20 years, and his lame defense of the association, raises character questions.

Will the lib media be upset if we quote Aristotle, whose insight seems useful in this context?

"Those, then, are friends to whom the same things are good and evil; and those who are, moreover, friendly or unfriendly to the same people; for in that case they must have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each other what they wish for themselves, they show themselves each other's friends." (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter)

We choose our own friends and associates. And this is significant in Obama's case in particular as we are trying to get a sense of who he is and what informs him. Obama is asking the nation to honor him with its highest office. Yet, during most of his adulthood, he has befriended some of the worst kind of people — many of whom detest the nation Obama seeks to lead. And when combined with Obama's own extremism on issue after issue (is there a left-wing position he does not embrace?), there can be no doubt that an Obama administration working with a Democrat majority in Congress will fundamentally alter the nation's character in ways that will be very difficult to unravel.

America's commitment to color-blind equality, a commitment ironically confirmed by Obama's own nomination as the Democratic Party nominee, is one key area of public policy that will undergo transformation.

Strangely, the wheels of progress on race relations will likely grind to a halt, as a Democratic administration - with majorities in Congress - seeks to roll back race-neutral policies in areas of civil rights, education, and voting, with the likely result being the very kind of racial backlash against which Obama and his Democratic allies now decry.