Holder or Fold 'em.
Regarding Eric Holder’s “Coward” Comment:

Eric Holder’s comments a week ago brought many things to light, but the most interesting bit we gleamed from his speech is just how far out of touch our new Attorney General is with us. If we want to have an honest conversation about race then we need to admit that it cuts both ways; and that there are just as many racist and homophobes in the black community (or any other community for that matter). As the first African American AG Holder missed an opportunity to address that issue head on. Instead the issue has fallen short and until Holder is ready to be honest about people like Rev. Jessie Jackson, and call him what he sadly has become, a racist, then the issue will continue to fall short.

You might recall when Rev. Jackson called New York City "hymie town." You also might recall that nothing much was made of this insensitive comment. Of course we all know that if a white preacher said that “it’s a jungle out there” while discussing the Atlanta Zoo he would be crucified in the media and demanded to step down by the NAACP. Is Holder ready to discuss this double standard that plagues our nation? If so we might just be headed towards a more honest discussion. Otherwise, Holder is a hypocrite, just like Rev. Jackson. But this goes deeper than mere dialogue, and it has nothing to do with whites.

Holder has missed the plot completely. It is not that we are incapable of talking about race. In the South we never stopped talking about race. What Holder misses what his own people are saying and more importantly, doing. There is a phenomenal event happening in America the last three or four decades that no one seems to know about. It called the “reverse migration.” African Americans are moving back to the South it record numbers not seen since their migration north. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. had a great special on PBS that touched on this subject. What we see is that when blacks become successful, middle class, and can go wherever they want, they do not move to white neighborhoods or even white cities. To the contrary, many move to where there are more blacks, and in this day and age they have some pretty good choices, and most are in the South.

The idea that if blacks ever got the means to do so, they would immediately move to a white neighborhood and join a white country club and desire to hang out with whites is not only dated, it is foolish, egotistical and even mildly bigoted. Anyone who still subscribes to this idea, that blacks want what they have, and even encourages it in the spirit of “diversity” over reality, no doubt has no idea what blacks really want. Instead they have applied some mythical notion to what they think equality is really about, ultimately them and their lifestyle. Otherwise they would move to where non-whites are, in the spirit of diversity of course.

Prof. Gates investigation found a different scenario. He discovered that many northern blacks are moving back down South, in particular Atlanta, because they find that they can relate more to the culture and have common ground there that goes back many generations, something that was missing in the predominate white north. As a result these new successful African Americans are moving into middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods in the South that are predominantly black.

What does this tell us? Is it possible that we do not want to “mix on the weekends?” And if this is of the people’s own volition we have to ask; is that so bad? As long as we respect each other are are equal in the eyes of the law, who cares who we hang out with on the weekends? I know that the diversity police will scoff at this thought, but we have to look at what’s happening in the real world.

Holder’s naive comment is not just out of touch with American race relations it is out of touch with what’s going on within his own black community as a whole. To give Holder some benefit of the doubt one might suppose that he was just speaking about the atrocious race relations in his own city, New York. And he’d be right. Maybe the South should send a few “riders” of their own to New York to show them how to get along. But Holder called all Americans “cowards.”

What Holder missed is that many within his own city are leaving for the greener pastures of Dixie, not necessarily to get away from racist NYC cops, but to get closer to people like themselves and foster old roots. That does not sound as if they want to talk about racism on the weekends with whites. If the US Attorney General's idea of racial utopia is blacks and whites hanging out on the weekend talking about race issues he should look to the past, in particular the failed bussing debacle, and he should look to today, and what people are doing when they can do whatever they want, free and clear of oppression and intrusive laws.

Forcing people to do something by passing shortsighted laws or by belittling the masses from the bully pulpit never works out in the end. The question is, on who’s terms are we to discuss race in America, Holder’s alone, or ours as a people? I am sure Holder was trying to do what he thought was right, but ignorance in no excuse. Our Attorney General has a long way to go.

-CB McQueen