Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad

Larry Elder is black conservative. I struggled for a few moments to drop that fact gracefully, but than decided to just say it. That may color your perception of this article, in which he chastises President Bush for failing to rip into the NAACP when he spoke to them last week. He even has some suggestions for what President Bush could say.

"Ladies and gentlemen, good news. While racism can never be purged from the hearts of all people, it no longer represents a force potent enough to hold back anyone in America who works hard, invests in education and avoids making poor moral choices. Because of the hard work of your organization and countless men and women of all races, America has come a long way. Despite America's flaws, we can now say that we have the fairest, most free, more upwardly mobile and more open society in all of human history. We have black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Black people occupy positions in government at the very highest levels. The black middle class grows and thrives. It is an insult to hard-working black men and women to suggest that, but for race-based preferences, they never would have made it.

"The real problem facing this country is a growing sense of entitlement -- of you owe me, blaming slights of the past on those living in the present. Well, all a state can be, is just in its own time. As Bill Cosby once said, America has done its part. Now we must do our part."

I wonder what Larry Elder's life is like that he can look at America and say that it is the most upwardly mobile society in all of human history. I don't understand why in order to love America, as a Conservative, you basically have to put blinders on and believe that all other nations are unjust tyrannies compared to your own country.

I suppose it's the same sort of love that allows a Conservative to be convinced that the Federal Government is two steps away from taking away everything he owns while simultaneously believing that he loves America and all liberals don't.

As for the idea that we've whipped all our racial problems, and any thing that happens to Black Americans is their own fault, well, I can see why President Bush didn't choose to go that route.