We’re four months into 2011. Do we have a winner of the Egregious Double Standard of the Year already? Members of the National Black Church Initiative step forward and receive your award!
News of the NBCI’s brazen display of chutzpah comes to us courtesy of the Web site blackamericaweb.com, which ran the story last week. The headline was “Clergymen to Trump — You’re Racist.”
The Trump mentioned in the story is indeed the Donald himself, who may — or may not be — running for president. Noses out of joint and skivvies in a wad, NBCI members aren’t happy with the Donald’s continuing campaign to have President Obama produce his birth certificate.
Anthony Evans, NBCI president, was more specific, saying: “In his fledgling bid as a presidential nominee, Trump has reignited false allegations of President Obama’s citizenship, stirring up old rumors about the validity of Obama’s Hawaii birth records. These remarks are extraordinarily misinformed.”
Had Evans chosen to end his statement there, he’d have been just fine and everything would have been ever so hunky-dory. But noooo. Evans chose to add these 10 words:
“… and speak to a deeper and more insidious problem: racism.”
Whipping out the racism card is so 1980s. It went out, or should have gone out, with disco. The charge carries little meaning anymore. And that’s because people like Evans choose to toss it around when it doesn’t apply.
Let’s examine Trump’s claim about Obama’s citizenship and birth certificate. As bogus and silly as the assertion is, there are several things Trump didn’t do.
1. He didn’t mention race, either Obama’s or anyone else’s.
2. He didn’t call Obama out for his name.
3. He sure as heck didn’t refer to Obama with the “N” word.
4. He didn’t drag Obama’s wife and daughters into the discussion.
Now who did, indeed, do all four things mentioned above? Why, Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panther Party. Now if you’re looking for that NBCI statement condemning Shabazz’s remarks about Obama — which by any rational standard were much worse than Trump’s nitpicking about Obama’s birth certificate — I’m afraid you’ll look in vain. I’ve already tried, on the NBCI Web site.
What I did find on the NBCI Web site was this statement about the organization’s “Civil Society Initiative.”
“A civil society lifts everyone to the same level of humanity, and forces people to deal with each other’s humanity. Our ultimate goal is to erase human prejudice, discrimination, hatred and especially violence.
“This project compels the Black Church to go against the grain, and not be afraid to speak to the most powerful institution or individual. It will also require the Black Church to correct any level of ignorance and engage in a conversation in order to transfer hate-filled language into words of healing and dialogue.”
In what sense were Shabazz’s comments about Obama not “hate-filled”? Why hasn’t NBCI urged Shabazz to use words that promote “healing and dialogue”?
It seems as though NBCI has given Shabazz a pass for two reasons: his politics and his race. It was NBCI, not Trump, that injected race into the discussion about Obama’s birth certificate. Rather than paint Trump with the racist brush, the NBCI statement about Trump will make people ask if the real racism comes from NBCI, not the Donald.
Americans of Trump’s generation might remember a television game show called “To Tell The Truth.” And after listening to what NBCI has said — and hasn’t said — about Trump and Shabazz, those same Americans might be asking this question:
Will the real racists please stand up?
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
