The Lesson of Dr. Laura - Impeach Obama?
By Frances Rice
Frances Rice is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, a lawyer and chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She can be contacted at NBRA.
Since zero tolerance for those who hurt blacks is the lesson learned from the Dr. Laura Schlessinger N-word controversy, then the question becomes should President Barack Obama be impeached for the massive hurt he inflicted on black Americans with his corrupt failed socialism?
There is abundant evidence that Obama has repeatedly violated the “Schlessinger Standard” that justifies driving from the public square all who harm blacks.
In his book “Dreams from My Father”, Obama describes what he and other Democrats do to poor blacks as “plantation politics” – a strategy that condemns blacks to dependency on government handouts and generational poverty. Obama and the Democrats have built their power base on the backs of poor blacks and want to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats.
Stark details about the crisis in black communities created by the socialist policies of Obama and his fellow Democrats are provide by Phillip Jackson in his article ”
Black America loses gamble in electing first black president.” Jackson opines that “Black America mistakenly traded the future of its young black men for a black president.”
Further, Jackson points out how black families are in deep despair, with 70% of black children born into single, female-headed households. Jackson reveals the fact that black men are living beyond a “state of emergency.” The black male population is only 1% to 3% on many major college campuses, while black men comprise up to 50% to 80% of the prison rolls, even though they are only 7% of the total population in the United States. A report from the National Center for Children in Poverty shows that 35% of black children live in poverty. In the ten most populated states, "rates of child poverty among black children range from 26% in California to 51% in Ohio."
In the face of the dismal conditions in black communities, Obama cut funding for historical black colleges. He ended school choice scholarships in the District of Columbia and sent poor black children back to failing schools, showing that he cares more about the special interest of teachers unions than he does about poor black children. He denied thousands of black farmers their full court award of over three billion dollars that they were awarded from a discrimination law suit and caused many black farmers to lose their farms. Obama’s out-of-control spending killed private-sector jobs and created nearly twenty percent black unemployment.
Since Obama became president, an ignominious end has come to the Boys Choir of Harlem after 40 years of award-winning singing, starting in 1968, by young performers with world-class voices who had emerged from some of the most difficult neighborhoods of New York. Many of the choir’s materials, like copies of handwritten scores and its trademark burgundy blazers, now sit in black garbage bags and open boxes in a church’s damp dirt-floor basement, amid overturned tables and sacks of plaster of Paris.
Another casualty of the Obama economy is the Ebony Fashion Fair starring black models, a show sponsored by the Johnson Publishing Company that also publishes Ebony and Jet magazines. The Miami Herald described the 50-year-old fair as a traveling style show that showcases the work of dozens of designers from around the world, while also raising money for scholarships, cancer research and local charities in the areas where it stops.
The pain wreaked by Obama and Democrats on poor blacks dwarfs any smarting felt by black Americans from Schlessinger’s tirade on her talk show, using the N-word to demonstrate the hypocrisy of blacks freely using the N-word while whites are forbidden from exercising the same freedom of speech.
In his article “
Dr. Laura Got it Right About the N Word” Earl Ofari Hutchinson provides an unvarnished analysis of Schlessinger’s actions when he wrote the following.
“[S]he got it right about the word, or more particularly who uses it, condones it, and even glories in it. And that’s the legion of black comedians and rappers that have virtually canonized the word. They sprinkle the word throughout their rap lyrics and comedy lines; and black writers, and filmmakers go through lengthy gyrations to justify using the word. During a panel discussion at the Summer Television Critics Association tour in 2005, Aaron McGruder, creator of the popular comic strip, Boondocks, defiantly told the audience that he’d use the N’ word as much as he pleased in his comic strip and in his series on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. If folks didn’t like it, well tough, said McGruder.
“N word users and apologists serve up the lame rationale that the more a black person uses the word, the less offensive it becomes, which is precisely the point Dr. Laura picked apart. They claim that they are cleansing the word of its negative connotations so that racists can no longer use it to hurt blacks. Comedian-turned-activist Dick Gregory had the same idea some years ago when he titled his autobiography, Nigger. Black writer, Robert DeCoy also tried to apply the same racial shock therapy to whites when he titled his novel, The Nigger Bible.
“The black N word apologists tick off an endless storehouse of defenses to justify use of the word. They claim that that it is a term of endearingly or affectionately. They say to each other, “You’re my nigger if you don’t get no bigger.” Or, “that nigger sure is something.” Others use it in anger or disdain, “Nigger you sure got an attitude.” Or, “A nigger ain’t s….” Still, others are defiant. They say they don’t care what a white person calls them since words can’t harm them.”
In the face of such blatant use of the N-word by blacks themselves, Schlessinger was disingenuously condemned by those professing to be offended by the mere sound of the word. To be consistent with the newly established Schlessinger Standard, all blacks who invoke the N-word must be publicly castigated by anyone within earshot. Also, all black entertainers who use the N-word must be driven out of the entertainment arena now. Most important of all, this zero tolerance for hurting blacks requires that Obama be impeached immediately for the irreparable harm he has caused to poor black Americans.
All things considered, it is highly unlikely that blacks can be ever stopped from using the N-word, or that Obama will be impeached. So, our only alternative is to toss the Schlessinger Standard into the dust bin and retrieve our Constitution from the trash heap where it has been tossed by Obama. Then we can all have what Schlessinger pined for when she said “I want my freedom of speech back.”
That freedom will bring to a screeching halt the labeling of people as racist because some blacks feel offended by certain words, including such innocent words as “niggardly” which simply means “stingy” or “meager.” Recapturing our freedom of speech will also allow people, such as Schlessinger, to discuss openly—without being labeled a racist—whether everyone, black and white, should eliminate certain words from our public discourse, given the historical context.
It is interesting to note that while we are admonished to consider the hurt “feelings” of blacks when choosing what words may be spoken, Obama has declared that it is acceptable for a mosque to be built near Ground Zero without regard for the feelings of the victims of the Islamo-fascist terrorist attacks on September 11th.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Dr. Martin Luther King
[Note: This essay was received by email.]
