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Nothing depresses me more, or more quickly, these days than the subject of “race in America” (well perhaps the never-ending discussion of the Ohio State National Championship but I will get over that . . .). It is one of those things that can wear me down to the point of giving up quicker than practically any other topic.

Why? Because I find the issue so intractable, so irresolvable. I know this will sound lame but I feel like I have a very healthy attitude about race. Although I grew up in predominantly white areas, I feel completely free of racism (I warned you this would sound lame, i.e. “some of my best friends are black”). In high school I spent some time in the worst neighborhoods of Philadelphia working with underprivileged youth. I felt comfortable living, albeit for a short time, in a predominantly black neighborhood and interacting with black people. I felt like they accepted me for who I was and vice versa. I enjoyed learning about the Rap music that was about to explode on to the scene (coming from Indiana it was cool to know about anything remotely hip and I earned a little respect by owning a pair of patent leather high top Addidas!) After college I moved to Hyattsville, Maryland (home of blogger extraordinaire Tony) and an area where the mailman called my wife and I the “White Couple.” Again, I felt comfortable living within that community and felt like they accepted me for the most part. (BTW, the real animus was between American blacks and other immigrant groups like Jamaicans, but that is another story)

Intellectually, culturally, and politically and I am influenced and inspired by black Americans. One of the biggest influences on my political thinking is Thomas Sowell. While I am not a fan of “rap” music, or popular music in general, I love jazz, blues, and R&B (and when I say Jazz I don’t mean Kenny G but Miles Davis, John Coltrane, etc.). Practically all of my sports heroes are black. I never went for the ugly white boy Larry Bird but instead loved Dr. J (and I went to high school in Indiana!). Like the rest of the planet I love mega-stars like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. As a Steelers fan, I was always rooting for Kordell Stewart against all those white back-ups even though he led Colorado in a crushing last second victory over my Michigan Wolverines and I had every reason to hate him. If I had to name a favorite person in the Bush White house it would be Condi Rice (she likes football and history what’s not to like?). Probably the most conservative statewide elected official in Ohio, Ken Blackwell, would get my vote for Governor in a heartbeat (and it is hard to envision someone more “white” than the current governor Bob Taft. I know all of this is anecdotal and haphazard and potentially patronizing but what I am trying to say is I am perfectly comfortable having black people as role models and heroes.

I have always held that where you come from is a bigger indicator of how people get along than race. For example, if you take two people raised in rural/suburban Middle America they will have no problem getting along even if one is white and one is black. If you take two black people, one raised in the inner city and one raised in a small town, they will have a harder time relating. In my mind there is a bigger divide between urban and suburban than between black and white.

This is what leads me to depression. Despite what I feel is all of this progress and despite my own personal feelings about blacks, in huge swaths of academia and the media I am labeled a racist simply because I am conservative. Just hang out on a college campus or listen to the Tavis Smiley Show. These people are so caught up in exposing white racism and intolerance, fueled by mixed up psuedo-marxist Lit. Crit. mumbo-jumbo, that they can’t see how much better the world has become. In graduate school I had a debate with a gentleman who was convinced that the student radio station was racist because they were giving away tanning time at the local salon or that the Bowling Green grocery store didn’t stock “his people’s food.” I guess the Asian’s were ok as they had a Chinese buffet in the grocery store but no soul food so bring on the KKK.

The fact is that the liberal leadership of the so-called civil rights movement hates me a great deal more than I dislike them. To them your individuality means nothing. If you don’t believe in affirmative action or if you support the wrong judges you are not just mistaken but a closet racist perpetuating white supremacy and intolerance. What you actually believe and feel means nothing. All you had to do was listen to the “Black Leadership” on MLK day. Most of them spent the whole day venting on how fake Bush was for celebrating the life of MLK while at the same time opposing the affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan. They really believe in the Marxist concept of a false consciousness where you don’t even know what you really think. It doesn’t matter what Bush says, if he doesn’t toe the line on every single political issue he is anti-civil rights. It doesn’t matter if he accepts and appreciates blacks in his personal life and shows nothing but love and friendship towards the black community – if he opposes full scale affirmative action then he must really hate blacks. As a great many people have pointed out, the irony that people completely comfortable supporting Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson yet attack Bush as the head of a closet racist party is staggering. To hear this type of crap preached from Church pulpits is disheartening in the extreme.

The sad part is that I am not sure these leaders realize the damage they are doing. Do they see that constantly attacking everyone as racists and refusing to discuss things with even a sliver of goodwill destroys the very social fabric we are trying to mend? As a student of history, I am perfectly cognizant of the dark failures of this country. We have struggled to live up to our ideals and we have failed a great many times. As a Christian and as an American I have a certain amount of intellectual humility knowing that we are a fallen and imperfect people. But to be ostracized and insulted because I still believe in those ideals is depressing and disheartening to a degree I find hard to swallow.

So to be honest I had a hard time celebrating MLK day because every time I turned on the radio or TV I had to listen to someone explaining how the President was a hypocrite or how Trent Lott was the real GOP. Martin Luther King, Jr. succeeded to the degree he did because he made Americans realize how much we had in common – black and white. He called us to live up to our ideals. Too many of those who consider themselves his followers appeal not to what we share as Americans but what separates us. They don’t call us to live up to our ideals but ask us to reject those ideals or face the wrath of the race mongers. You are either with us or against us they shout – demanding uniformity in the name of diversity. If that isn’t depressing I don’t know what is . . .