Race, Politics and Glenn Beck

Today, Glenn Beck was awesome. He struck a note with me that needed striking. In fact I think that note needs to come from a gong hanging from a tall tree's limb to be heard throughout the country.

When Obama ran for office there were many concerns and ideas running through the culture. The two basic ones were political freedom/slavery and race.

I've always been a devotee of political freedom. It's the only thing about politics that I care about. All issues can be solved in those terms. Is the government increasing its hold over our lives or do we have the full measure of freedom that we need to live as human beings and that we ought to have? That is and always will be my question.

My relationships with my black friends has always been one of mutual respect and fun with some inspiration thrown in. Whenever there is a story about overcoming slavery and gaining freedom, I'm all in, often inspired and moved to tears.

I've always felt a common ground with blacks because of my anti-slavery, love-of-freedom values, but hearing Obama speak the strains of slavery in his messages of socialism, I wasn't so sure. When 95% of blacks voted for Obama, I was no longer sure what was going on. Did I have a common value of freedom with them or not?

No one said anything and my interracial relationships near me have gone quiet. Although I've communicated with blacks who I'm clear are solidly against socialist slavery and for political freedom, they are people I discover on the internet. I'm glad for these relationships, but they don't replace the friends I had.

Beck's program today pierced that desert of silence. I saw there a studio full of people who are Americans first and who are not afraid to speak against Obama and the Democrats as they seek to increase slavery and reduce freedom. I heard a number of them struggling with the hyphenated African-American designation. They are Americans first and they don't want some hyphenated name diminishing that. I heard them hating it that people in their culture deride knowledge and speaking good English.

I was left clear that we are into waters that we do not know how to navigate. And I was left clear that there are some courageous blacks willing to speak for the deep and enduring values of our larger, common American culture.

I was left heartened that the Democrat progressivism/socialism agenda lead by a black man is not sitting well with some of them. Given the results that government programs have had on their families and children, trapping them in ghettos of poverty and ignorance, they are not enticed by Obama's smooth words and Mr. Cool. They know bullshit when they see it.

Bottom-line I was left with that when it comes to ideas and discerning truth and value, there is no such thing as color. Beck's was the first post-racial program I've heard. I only wish Obama could lead as well.

I thank Glenn Beck today. It was an opening in what has seemed to me like a monolithic, impenetrable Obama-barrier.


Here are videos of the program. I got them from Fox News. He bills this as Part 1 of his series on black conservatives. What I hear is a series on black people who have different views and can speak out. I didn't parse their words for whether they were strictly conservative or not, whether they stayed on or went off the tracks.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3