The racial grievance industry has been so successful that in recent history it has had a tendency to counteract itself. There are so many legal protections against discrimination in place, that sometimes employers don’t want to hire someone from a protected class for fear that they won’t be able to fire them. Or if they do, they’ll be subjected to a Bataan death march of discrimination lawsuits.
A few years ago, sports writers enjoyed tsk-tsking college and pro football teams for not hiring enough black coaches. Whenever a coaching position was open, there was a lot of media attention focused on it and potential black candidates for the job. And with media attention, naturally you would often see appearances by Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton demanding justice and equality (and in Sharpton’s case, probably a glazed ham too).
Now, put yourself in the shoes of the person making the hiring decisions. You hire coaches with full knowledge that there’s more turnover in the coaching profession than in a Dublin liquor warehouse. You’re sensitive to racial issues and would like to hire a black coach, but when you have to fire him in three or four years, you don’t want to have to deal with Jackson and/or Sharpton again, along with the pack of civil rights lawyers that would surely come storming the gates behind them. So, you follow the path of least resistance and just hire the white coach–you take the public relations hit now so you know you can be free to fire the guy later if it doesn’t work out.
But once a few black coaches have been hired, and then fired without subsequent lawsuits and drama, it stops being such a big deal. People see that they can make hiring/firing decisions with black coaches just like they can with white coaches, and in the end that’s a net positive for black coaches.
In the same way, if America can fire Barak Obama just like any terrible white politician, I think that will do more for leveling the racial playing field than re-electing him could.
There are some people, a la Jackson and Sharpton, who want to make firing a black president a much bigger deal than firing a white president, including lately Bill Maher, who said: “If you’re thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, I would like to make this one plea: black people know who you are and they will come after you.” (Black America, behold your spokesman: unfunny cable talk show host Bill Maher!)
But if The Most Holy First Black President can be judged and held accountable by the people just like any other office holder, and it’s treated just like business as usually, I think that speaks well of our system and out nation. Now let’s make it happen: A vote against Obama is a vote for equality!