The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley had a piece the other day on GOP candidate Herman Cain’s “post-racial promise.” Oh, please, not another post-racial presidency! But the beauty of Cain’s candidacy is that he really is post-racial!
Don’t expect the politicians who remain in office by peddling grievance and the notion that African Americans can’t function without big government goodies to buy into Cain’s promise, however. The last thing some of these politicians want is a post-racial world!
Cain has a new book “This Is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House” (you gotta love the Hermanator's optimism!), which describes his upbringing (the Cains were “po,” which is even less prosperous than being “poor”), his successful career in corporate America, and the lessons he derived from these experiences. One lesson is that there is no reason a guy like Herman Cain can't make it in America. Riley writes:
"One of the most important lessons Dad taught us was not to feel like victims. He never felt like a victim; he never talked like a victim," writes Mr. Cain of his youth in the Jim Crow South. "And both of our parents"—his mother worked as a maid and his father was a chauffeur—"taught us not to think that the government owed us something. They didn't teach us to be mad at this country." Is it any wonder that Mr. Cain wound up as a conservative Republican?
Now, that is post-racialism. I’m beginning to like Mr. Cain (join the club?), but a Cain bid for the White House, should he get the nod, may actually make the issue of race even more divisive than ordinarily. In fact, Hollywood savant Janeane Garofolo already has made the nasty charge that “racist” Republicans will support Cain to hide their racism!
Jason explains why Cain is such a threat to people like Ms. Garofolo :
Black individuals who don't see themselves primarily as victims are a threat to the political left, which helps explain why MSNBC commentators have derided Mr. Cain as a token and why Jon Stewart has mocked him in tones that evoke Amos 'n' Andy or Stepin Fetchit. To secure political victories, Democrats need blacks to vote for them in unison. Independent thinking cannot be tolerated.