A Functional Definition of "Racism"

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially 
a nation of cowards"

-- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

February 18, 2009

CBS is reporting another death directly attributed to "Fast & Furious" guns, this one the brother of a Mexican state Attorney General, who was tortured and killed by cartel terrorists.

The majority view of ATF's "Fast & Furious" is now that it was a purely political operation, part of President Barack Obama's "under the radar" gun control effort. As I have said from the beginning of this fiasco, "Fast & Furious" makes no sense any other way. It was not a law enforcement operation, as made clear in testimony before Congress, because the ostensible law enforcement goals, "rolling up" the entire cartel gun smuggling operation or getting warrants against the mass murderers who head the Mexican cartels, was nonsensical even to the brave agents who have stepped forward to testify.

Those hero agents who stepped forward told their bosses the same thing they told Congress -- that people were going to die as a direct result of "Fast & Furious."

Apparently, the brass at the ATF and their handlers at the Department of Justice, including Attorney General Eric Holder, were okay with that, as long as it was Mexican nationals doing the dying. Let's be clear about this...all the people involved in "Fast & Furious" knew people were going to die. Their own experienced agents told them so. The cartels have routinely slaughtered family members of people opposed to them, and the concept of "innocent bystander" simply doesn't exist in the free-fire zone south of the U.S. border. Providing the cartel with a new, easy source of guns was guaranteed to have lethal results.

But wouldn't that just play into the meme? ATF leaders were happy, even described as "giddy," when "Fast & Furious" guns began turning up at Mexican crime scenes.

Can you imagine any circumstances, any mindset, that would allow ATF brass and its handlers to not think the guns they were flooding into Mexico would result in the killing of civilians? Any mindset at all?

So what is "racism?" What is this thing that we as Americans, in Attorney General Holder's words, are too cowardly to face? How about the Wiki definition:

Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in people's traits and capacities that are entirely due to their race, however defined, and that, as a consequence, justify the different treatment of those people, both socially and legally.

The key words here, for me, are, "...justify the different treatment of those people, both socially and legally." Sure, the cartels are killers, but — nudge nudge wink wink say no more — Americans aren't going to get killed. Mexicans are going to get killed, and, well, they're Mexicans, right? They can't vote in American elections; they're a long way away and, hey, we won't even have to look at the bodies!

Ladies and gentlemen, if that isn't the essence of racism, tell me what is.

Their lives counted for less than a political point; counted for so little that dead Mexicans weren't even a minor consideration.

Some commentators say this upcoming Presidential election will be won by the Hispanic vote, and the party in power is reaching out to those voters who have their origins in Mexico and Central and South America with a powerful cry of, "Here's what we have done for you!" Here is what they really did — they armed your blood enemies and by doing so sanctioned the killing of your brothers, your sisters, your uncles, your aunts. Remember.

"Swollen men, blind with power

Break the rules, one by one

With their lies raising the danger

Of their games under the gun."

—Kris Kristofferson

"Under the Gun"