The NAACP is not the only organization obsessed with the titillating, malicious charge of racism. The media’s coverage of Mrs. Obama’s NAACP speech highlights their rancid guilt in this technique. ABC’s coverage of her speech claimed that she had denounced the Tea Party as racist.[i]
Yet she never said a word about the Tea Party. This coverage completely obscured the important culturist message she delivered. The focus of First Lady Obama’s speech dealt with childhood obesity. She told her audience that, “one in three children is overweight or obese.” Yet the race-obsessed coverage took us away from the vital issue that the First Lady wanted us to discuss.[ii]
Mrs. Obama’s speech was culturist. She laid the blame for childhood obesity at the door of cultural changes. She told of walking to school as a child and having gym class twice a week. Furthermore she discussed the impact of television replacing outside activity. She also discussed the decline of family meals and accessibility of candy as malicious dietetic factors. Her talk had nothing to do with race. It had everything to do with culture.
First Lady Obama spoke of her hope that her White House garden would “spark a broader conversation about the health and well-being not just of our kids but of our communities.” Obviously, the abuse of the word “racism” in reference to her speech and the attention on the Tea Party completely obscured her message. It spawned virtually zero discussion of childhood obesity. ABC and the NAACP not only slandered good Americans belonging to the Tea Party, they diminished, and thus insulted, the First Lady with their repetition of charges of racism.
We need the ability to discuss issues in terms of culture, not race. After the NAACP accused the Tea Party of being racist, this non-issue became the focus of valuable media time. David Webb, a prominent African – American Tea Party leader, had to spend much of his resulting media time and attention discussing racism issue instead issues he and his Tea Party brethren would rather focus on like fiscal conservatism. Ironically, after Webb agreed to a summit on racism, the NAACP President, Benjamin Jealous, said, “there should be no debate about racism.” Exactly Mr. Jealous! It is a moot point. Our nation is as united as any in the world on the idea of combating racism.[iii]
Mrs. Obama and David Webb are not the only ones distracted by constant charges of racism. The Tea Party has stayed away from the vital issue of protecting our borders for fear of being called racist. Every step of our powerful Tea Party organization becomes tepid in this environment. The drug-running criminals of Northern Mexico represent a cultural threat to America, not a racial one. Yet the media seems obsessed with smearing those who worry about this issue as racist. The Tea Party needs to eschew this red herring of racism and talk in cultural terms if we are to feel free to discuss vital issues again.[iv]
Mrs. Obama speech itself could be called racist as it points out differences with the African - American community. She told her audience, “African American children are significantly more likely to be obese than are white children. Nearly half of African American children will develop diabetes at some point in their lives. People, that’s half of our children.” But rather than claiming racist attitudes caused this, rather than calling America racist, the First Lady highlights cultural patterns. Her “Let’s Move” initiative (www.letsmove.gov) targets "food deserts" in poorer neighborhoods underserved by major supermarkets. If she were white, the media would have called her racist. But her analysis is cultural, not racial.[v]
Elaborating, First Lady Obama told the NAACP that “inequalities still persist - in education and health, in income and wealth.” The NAACP considers these disparities the result of “racism.” But, needing to use desperate race-baiting tactics to stay in the news reflects the complete lack of relevance of their analysis. Culture explains differences in achievement in health, income, and education much better than phantoms of racial attitudes. As the media and the NAACP constantly ignore such issues and bring the focus back to racism, it robs America of an opportunity to have useful cultural discussions that could especially help the very minority groups they purport to care about.
To facilitate this transition away from constant accusations of racism, we need to supplement our vocabulary with the words “culturist” and “culturism.” Whenever the media or the NAACP smear citizens who speak about cultural issues as racist, we need a word that clarifies our concerns. Our PC multiculturalist leaders slander all those who would point out that diversity includes less-than-ideal characteristics as racist. But, we know that achievement gaps in education, health, and income have long been more profitably discussed as stemming from cultural maladies than reflecting the white man’s residual racist attitudes. America and the Tea Party must reject the race obsession of the media and the NAACP and follow Mrs. Obama’s lead in speaking in culturist terms.
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