The "Un-Fair" Campaign in Duluth is Un-Fair to Everyone

Another salvo in the effort to shape President Obama as a good instead of an emotionally disinterested and intellectually absent President was fired in, of all places, Duluth, Minnesota.  I have been to Duluth.  We stayed at the RV Park in the downtown marina, visited the waterfront museum and ate dinner at Hell’s Kitchen.  It was great.  Little did I know that in the middle of a truly reconstructed, mining and port city, filled with polite Minnesotans there is, evidently, a powder keg of racism.  The proof of it is the Un-Fair Campaign.  This publicity barrage, sponsored by some 15 community organizations, is billed as, “an educational campaign to raise awareness about white privilege…and facilitate dialogue…towards racial justice.”

            The message states that if you were born white you were born into a life of privilege, bought on the backs of all non-whites.  It also states that you are, by virtue of being white, a racist.  Besides providing billboards, flyers and a strong dose of vindictive hatred the program also funded a public lecture by Tim Wise at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. 

            For those who may not know Mr. Wise, he is a far left activist whose most forgettable quotes include:  “…old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms.  Fine, keep it up. It doesn’t matter.  Because you’re on the endangered list.  And unlike, say, the bald eagle or some exotic species of muskrat, you are not worth saving.”  Mr. Wise (who is white, by the way, but clearly has some issues with his parentage) also goes on to warn the rich, “…fancy ass Scotch drinkers.  And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon…Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this . . .You need to drink up…Because your time is limited.”  Apparently this self-described “anti-hate” campaign needs Mr. Wise as its spokesman to threaten old people, and all of us scotch drinkers. 

            There are so many things wrong with this, “blame the whites” approach that I am not surprised at the negative backlash this group is getting, or their belligerent attempts to justify the unjustifiable.  First of all, will everyone who doesn’t think there is racism in this country please stand up.  Oh, no one is standing?  Well, I guess the first purpose of the campaign is negated.  We all know there is racism.  We even know that there is a fair amount of it in minority communities!  Second, there is no privilege associated with being born white.  How dare these hate mongers assume to define me by my color!  I was born poor—really poor.  I know a large number of whites who have this same story.  We worked as hard as we could for as long as we could and no one gave us one single thing.  This story is not reserved for whites.  I have known Black, Latino and Asian families who have persevered through the same formula.    Finally, my parents raised me to accept every person as they came to me, with no preconceived notions.  To call me a racist is to insult me, and my parents, without even knowing me.  I would call that prejudice.              So now we come to the real reason behind all of this.  It isn’t really about, “dialogues,” or, “justice.” No. It is about playing the race card as a way to procure power. 

            Fight for fairness, and keep the faith.