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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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War is peace; Ignorance is strength; Slavery is freedom.  Add to that Orwellian list Dialogue is monlogue when it comes to Democratic presidential wannabes.  No one exemplifies this more than Cory “I Am Spartacus” Booker of New Jersey.  The senator who kicked off his presidential campaign fittingly at the beginning of Black History Month (the month formerly known as February), he dutifully flew to Iowa shortly after the announcement.  Besides reminding us that he does have a girlfriend, Booker also wants to talk about race.  Beware the politician who wants “to talk” about anything.  That is newspeak for “sit down and listen to my lecture.”

Said the wise sage from Newark, New Jersey: “If you want to have more courageous empathy, put yourself in a white person’s position who might have questions.”  This seems kind of strange saying this to an electorate that is 91% white in Iowa.  Some of those questions apparently involve white ignorance of Ralph Northam’s transgressions in Virginia.   Said Spartacus: “I’ve had white friends come up to me recently and say ‘I don’t understand this blackface thing, can you explain it to me?'”

This seems rather fictional as I doubt too many white people sought out Cory Booker to explain why dressing in blackface (or a KKK hood and robe) might be considered racist.  Perhaps, these were some white friends of Booker’s other friend, T-Bone.  In typical “let’s talk about race” fashion, the talk then turned into a lecture.  Said Booker further:

We’ve created this toxic environment in America where we have persistent racism, persistent bigotry, pain and hurt in entire communities. City of Newark, the reason why we have concentrated poverty there is because folk like being poor? No, it’s because it was systematically discriminated against. It was redlined, disinvested, FHA polices. Even great policies like the GI bill, African Americans had a very hard time taking advantage of many of the pathways to the middle class.

These sentiments are just a nicer version of Eric Holder’s 2009 comments that Americans are cowardly when it comes to talking about race.  As Rush Limbaugh explained then: “The problem with the conversation on race, whenever you engage in it, is that liberals don’t listen to what you say.”  Liberals do not want to have an honest discussion about race.  They want to preach and dictate whereupon the listener must then dictate back the sage advice to them and lay prostrate at their feet.

Booker relates how his parents had difficulty purchasing a home in a Newark suburb because they were black.  He talks of the high rate of black incarceration and the lack of funding for public housing and education.  What he does not talk about are some inconvenient facts:

• From 1890 to 1954, black unemployment rates were equal to or lower than that of whites;
• In 1938, only 11% of black children were born out of wedlock.  Today that figure is greater than 70%;
• Only 8% of married black couples live in poverty;
• There is no epidemic of white cops shooting blacks and more whites are killed by cops every year than all the black and Hispanic victims combined;
• Systemic racism apparently does not affect Nigerian (black) or Hindu immigrants who happen to, on average, have higher incomes than whites.

If you bring these items up to a liberal, be prepared to be branded a racist.  They will descend on you like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.  This honest discussion about race is just a diversionary tactic.  They would rather you forget about the bloated welfare state they envision, their socialist redistribution economic policies, and their willingness to kill living, viable babies because it may be an inconvenience.  We are to believe that racism should consume all of our attention.

One would like to believe that it is only Booker, but virtually every Democratic presidential contender will be using this strategy in some form to one degree or another.  Kamala Harris went out of her way to prove her black credibility and claimed to be listening to certain rap stars before they ever recorded anything.  Elizabeth Warren has jumped on the slavery reparations bandwagon, along with Harris.  Expect others to follow.  Perhaps Joe Biden will pull a Rachel Dolezal and claim he has African-American blood in him.  (WARNING TO JOE: That didn’t work out too well for Dolezal or Elizabeth Warren)

Instead of lecturing the country about race, perhaps Booker should spend more time talking to his imaginary friends about their ignorance of blackface, party with his imaginary friend T-bone, and have a quiet glass of wine with his imaginary girlfriend after they deliver imaginary diapers in an imaginary snowstorm.   That would be time well better spent.