The Race Card

Every time a black person points out the disparity between the black community and the white community some white mindset proponent of the status quo complains that some black person always have to play the race card. What exactly is the race card? If a black person says that white people are kicking his or her ass people with a white mindset will simply roll their eyes and say that the black person is trying to play the race card. There have been a number of comments to this blog about claiming race to be an issue when it is nothing but a figment of my imagination regardless of the reality all around us.

Reality says that the phenomenon of unarmed black people being shot in doorways forty times by four or five police officers for reaching for his identification or carrying a bag of groceries only happens to black people. But if black people say that this only happens to black people then they are simply trying to play the race card.

People with a white mindset celebrate the death of a teenaged black young man at the hands of boot camp guards. The young man’s heinous crime that ultimately cost him his life was taking his grandmother’s car without permission. Grandma would have gotten her car back. The boy had no plans to take it to a chop shop or sell it out from under her. But he was sent to a boot camp nevertheless. And when he couldn’t do the physical activity required of him the guards ganged up on him as if he was the only thing in their petty lives they had to control. In front of the cameras they killed him and then the system tried to cover its murder by claiming a latent sickle cell trait. Maybe that was some kind of euphemism for a baton across your neck and ammonia tables up the nose. But when black people say this only happens to black people they are simply trying to play the race card.

An elderly black man is assaulted by cops for having the audacity of asking for information. The poor police officer is so exhausted and frustrated with the flooding of New Orleans, Louisiana that the officer has no choice but to attack the black man for expecting to be treated with the common courtesy anyone would expect from a servant of the public. The man is wrestled to the ground by four of New Orleans’ finest and an agent of the FBI. Holding the black man’s hands in front of him and the officers of the law are screaming at the man to put his hands behind his back. The man replies, let go and I will. His eye swollen shut and his body bloody and bruised the man is arrested for disorderly conduct and drunken behavior. But the retired school teacher hadn’t had a drink in decades. But when a black person says this type of thing happens specifically to black people they are simply trying to play the race card.

When white students hang nooses from trees on school property and a fight between black students and white students erupts it is only the black students that get persecuted for attempted murder. But when black people point this fact out it is dismissed as black people trying to play the race card. A black girl breaks curfew and a white cop feels entitled to punch the girl in the face. When black people make the observation that no white girl is on video being punched in the face by cops then black people are trying to play the race card. White people can take rifles into schools, department stores, libraries, churches, and shoot the place up in high profile style. A white man can wear a bomb into a place of business and keep cops at bay for hours. But let a black man stand in front of police with a hairbrush in his hands and cops will blow him away in the time it takes for them to pull their guns out their holsters. Its black people who are constantly judged as the far greater danger to civilized society. But anyone who points out this discrimination is playing the race card.

When a black person makes the observation that every single Fortune 500 company’s office environment is predominantly white the observation is minimized by someone saying making the race card claim. Black on black crime is a phenomenon that is growing by leaps and bounds and to the vast majority of the public’s eye has reached epidemic proportions but nobody notices that white on white crime is even higher and much more prevalent. Anyone who tries to point out this fact is trying to play the race card. A talk show radio personality can say black quarterbacks are only mediocre but because the liberal media wants to promote black people that don’t deserving promotion. But its black people who are accused of playing the race card.

The fact of the matter is that white people have been playing the race card ever since these two races came across each other. From day one black people have been judged as subhuman and unintelligent. The discrimination against black people is obvious if anyone cares to look. There are differences in educational opportunities, differences in employment opportunities, medical services, law enforcement and neighborhood protection, political representation, housing and financing. Any category you choose to look you’ll see discrimination that can be traced back for generations. But be careful. Anyone who is black and expresses an interest in looking at discrimination with an honest eye needs to be aware of the stigma associated with such examination. People who want to protect the status quo will play their race card and dismiss anything you see that is unfair is nothing more than a play of the proverbial race card.