Okay, I’ve got a new resolution to try to avoid repeating too many items that are already on other widely read blogs, because I don’t want to turn this into the Department of Redundancy Department. (And, as I say, I’m a bit swamped this week anyway.) But sweet Jesus:
A couple of years ago, the husband and I were eating out — something you don’t do often with four kids under 10 — when he lowered his voice and gestured for me to look at the next table.
I did so, expecting to find something peculiar, such as Karl Rove conspiring with Elvis.
Ha ha. Get it? Anyone who thinks that Karl Rove is an underhanded political schemer probably believes Elvis is flying around somewhere in his UFO. But let us continue:
What I saw: A young family of five — father, mother, three young children, well-dressed, well-behaved, enjoying their night out, too. Except for the well-behaved children — mythical creatures with which we have no personal experience with — the family was unremarkable.
But they were black. And my husband whispered that in a nation where 70 percent of black children are born into homes without fathers, it was great to see a picture-perfect black family dining together. “I almost want to go give the guy a high five,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.
I don’t even know where to begin with this. In what lily white stepford community does this person live, that the sight of a black family out to dinner makes her husband nudge and point? And the extraordinary thing is that the writer goes on to explain that this is proof of her open-mindedness:
He didn’t, of course. When we left, we nodded, smiled at the children and promptly forgot the exchange…in which both of us unconsciously revealed that — horrors! — we are very desirous that black Americans do well.
It’s true. We desire Condoleezza Rice to do well! We desire Colin Powell to do well! We desire Clarence Thomas to do well! We desire practically every black American — with the possible exception of O.J. — to do well!
Gosh, isn’t that special. Some racist liberal would have probably looked at that family eating dinner and not given it a second thought. But not this exemplar of color-blind conservatism!
(By the way: “mythical creatures with which we have no personal experience with“…?)
(Story by way of Atrios.)