Media Racism
by Vincent Fiore

From a personal standpoint, the most frustrating and misunderstood aspect of racism is the usage of the word. There is no doubt that racism, as practiced by actual racists in the United States or elsewhere, is a painful and harmful reality.

But while racism means that you literally judge a person's physical and intellectual capabilities based solely on the observation that they are different from you in outward appearances, I am of the opinion that very few Americans today are real and avowed racists that practice racism.

But for years, the mainstream media has all too willingly fed the maw of the racism beast by pitting groups of people against one another. And predictably, the many minority groups that the media cater to have all too willingly accepted the "fact" that they, are the "dissimilar" of American society, are the victims.

And, following the media's oft color-coded reporting on anything that emphasizes people of different races as being different, post-1965 racism has devolved into a lucrative business. Individual and organizational race-hustlers have mined the rich vein of racism opened by the pervasive liberalism that masquerades as a TV or daily paper news.

America had its founding fathers, and so too does the business of racism. Standouts come to mind. Such "giants" of the race business would include Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan. These three men, combined with the might of the liberal media machine, have stirred much misunderstanding and caused great resentment. For years, the Jacksons and Sharptons of the country have "played that race card" over and above.

Yet for all their remonstrative behavior and bad acting on behalf of the supposedly downtrodden, they remain relevant only to the establishment media that continually uplifts them, and a small minority of disengaged and permanently disgruntled beings who seek strife--because for them--it has become a way of life in so many ways.

On Monday, May 2, 2005, all the bad actors that contend to represent the black race descended on the National Press Club in Washington , to kick-off a reprise of the "Million Man March," which drew tens of thousands to its first rally in 1995. (www.nysun.com/article/13027)

What happened? Nothing, as it was just as it always has been, and that is the business of race for race hustlers. Instead of relaying a message of self-empowerment and responsibility, leaders Sharpton, Jackson, and Farrakhan preached to the weakness of the black spirit, a manufactured spirit of their making that preaches constant oppression, continuous rejection, and inconsolable self-pity.

Sharpton, Jackson, and Farrakhan ranted upon the usual themes of strife, and the "poor me" mantra that may stir the soul of some listeners, but may also stain it. Perhaps the most outrageous line of the day came from Farrakhan, who always seems to out-do his fellow equivocators: "If anybody deserves to strap a bomb on themselves and give pain for the pain that we have suffered, it is we. But none of us would kill innocent life for political purposes."

(www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_050205/content/stop_the_tape_2.member.html )

It was all in a day's work for these men. But living in New York as I do makes me as qualified as anyone else in regard to how we view one another and what we are saying about the races. New York , after all, is the cosmopolitan melting pot of the world. In New York , race and ethnicity change from town to town, block to block.

Blacks and all other minority groups had real concerns once upon a time, but today mostly suffer the same transgressions that everyone else in society does from time to time. We are all offended at one time or another. We are all put upon or rejected at times, and that of itself does not mean racism.

There is little widespread racism against people of different skin complexion or foreign-sounding names today other than what so-called civil rights leaders inflame. The "racism" that pervades America today is the celebration (by some) of a false multiculturalism, a non-assimilation, which can only harm a nation by dividing it against itself.

Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City.

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