AG: Americans are ‘cowards’ in racial matters BY DEVLIN BARRETT The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Eric Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, said Wednesday the United States was “a nation of cowards” on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues. In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives. “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,” Holder said. Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.” Holder’s speech echoed President Barack Obama’s landmark address last year on race relations during the hotly contested Democratic primaries, when the thencandidate urged the nation to break “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years” and bemoaned the “chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.” Obama delivered the speech to try to distance himself from the angry rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Holder cited that speech by Obama as part of the motivation for his words Wednesday, saying Americans need to overcome an ingrained inhibition against talking about race. “If we’re going to ever make progress, we’re going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified,” Holder told reporters after the speech. In the speech, Holder urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education and economic disparities. Race, Holder said, “is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation’s history, this is in some ways understandable. … If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.” In a country founded by slave owners, race has bedeviled the nation throughout its history, with blacks denied the right to vote just a few decades ago. Obama’s triumph last November as well as ...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00301
People gravitate to 'their own'. That is human nature. Even animals fo that! I don't really think that is or should be called cowardness!I always thought that the idea of the 'melting pot' was that people from all backgrounds could live here. I didn't think it ment 'live, eat and sleep' together. I just thought it ment to 'coexist' and share the same freedoms.
I really don't like his word choice of 'coward'.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
President Obama’s head of the “Justice” Department [Eric Holder] thinks Americans are “cowards” with regard to race relations [Feb. 19 Gazette].
This remark needs to be debated, but there is no doubt the Justice Department is not in the justice business. The Justice Department is in the politics and cronyism (patronage) business. Look at what went on in the Justice Department during the Bush administration. Americans were not cowards at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, numerous battlefields of two world wars, and various “police” actions. If Americans are “reluctant” to speak openly about race, it is due to political correctness. Political correctness is a tool of the Democrats more than the Republicans. The real cowards in America are the members of Congress who failed to take a stand on Vietnam and two-and-one-half oil wars.
The seats of government in 50 states are loaded with “budget cowards.” “Truth, justice and the American way” has been painted into a corner. The architects of this now call us names.
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