As IF Times

link African-American lawmakers blast budget plan as step back for civil rights – The Hills Floor Action.

If I had a nickel for every time a white person complained that public policy laws were racist against them, I’d be two short of enough change for a dime.  According to the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, coincidentally all Democrats,  the proposals by the Republican members of Congress to curtail spending are destined to roll back civil rights advances. 

While this appeal may reasonate with a certain crowd, the logic and validity of the argument are as absent as the missing 14 Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers.  Actually, this notion is insulting to people of many constituencies.  At its root, the logic seems to be that only people of color, namely blacks would be adversely impacted by budget cuts.  It’s truly giving false credit to those lawmakers that apparently are able to  direct legislation to isolate only blacks and exclude other ethnic minorities.  Do these proposed budget cuts somehow not affect Latinos? Chinese? South Asians?  How are they able to do that?

If in fact this is the case, the racism claim is valid since that means only blacks have been specifically excluded from access to prosperity.  This implies that all other racial subgroups have somehow managed to exclude  blacks as well since they don’t seem to be lobbying against budget cuts.  It’s intriguing to me that there are not more vocal black groups complaining about how they are specifically kept out of the grocery store business, or the laundry business, or the gardening business, or the restaurant business.  Those damn ethnic cartels are likely running closed shops.  How are they able to monopolize this slice of American business?  It must be racism.

What’s truly remarkable is that these other visible minorities can hold such influence within the economy without the benefit of significant racial representation in the Federal government.  There is no Congressional Chinese Caucus, no Mexican, Cuban or Central American Caucus.  There is no South Asian Caucus. 

The real racism here is from the Black Caucus itself, which by virtue of its very existence influences policies that have been detrimental to that minority.  The usefulness of this subgroup of lawmakers is very questionable since the world has changed dramatically over the past 50 years.  It’s hard to believe a legislative body exists only to forward the cause of one racial subgroup in an ‘inclusive’ society.  In case anyone hadn’t noticed, the present President is a person of color.  It is the height of hypocrisy to claim that the success of many blacks are due to individual effort while attributing failures to systemic racism.  When failure is rewarded, it perpetuates the culture of dependency. Ask any parent who has a 30 year old living at home.

If anyone needs help, it’s the contingent of Americans who are willfully non productive.  We’ll call it the Congressional USELESS Caucus which stands for  Union of SEdentary,   Lazy, Entitled, Sanctimonious Slobs.  This would work only if you could convince anyone in this group to run for office.  And besides, there already is a Democratic Party.

link Hispanics not motivated for 2010 election – Washington Times.

The racism accusation is a favorite device used by liberals when trying to gather support from immigrants from opposing conservatives during elections.  Anyone paying attention to the rhetoric knows the opposite is true, that the people supposedly championing racial equality are the same ones treating ethnics as homogeneous blocs. 

While that may be true for a specific segment of the voting population in the US, namely blacks, according to this link,  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/10/obama-approval-gallup-blacks.html, it’s unlikely that most people necessarily vote along racial lines.  In the case of Latinos, many of whom are escaping their homelands of Mexico or Cuba in order to improve their economic circumstances, personal finance and well being are more important to them than solidarity with  their ethnic brethren.  If they just wanted to hang out with their peeps, presumably, they wouldn’t have taken the trouble to break into the U.S. 

It’s actually insulting to all minorities that just because someone in office is of their race that they should automatically receive the group vote.  It’s always been amusing to me that “Person A” deigns to represent the Asian community, or the Latino community or the Polish community.  Imagine if someone were put forth to represent the White community.  Chris Matthews would be foaming like mentos in a coke bottle. 

Getting back to Latinos, or all ethnics for that matter; they all have one thing in common in their arriving to the U.S., the ambition to make something of themselves in one of the few, if not the only nation left in the world, where you can succeed based only on your hard work.  Most people are driven by the desire for a better life for their family than observance of any group cause.  In that respect, this parallels the desires of most of the larger community.  When you think about it, that was the essence of the founding of the country in the first place 300 years ago. So if politicians are going to pander and lie to the people, at least lie about the things that affect everyone.  Everyone basically wants the same things, jobs, freedom and of course the classic and elusive pursuit of happiness.  Well, most people.

So when the headlines read that Hispanics are not motivated for the 2010 election, maybe, just maybe that’s because the present administration’s policies aren’t viewed favourably by them… as individuals.  People aren’t monolithically stupid because of race.  Bad policies for one are probably bad policies for all.