In George Will’s piece “Can Romney turn this contest around?” in The Washington Post, George used the following baseball analogy
A significant date in the nation’s civil rights progress involved an African American baseball player named Robinson, but not Jackie. The date was Oct. 3, 1974, when Frank Robinson, one the greatest players in history, was hired by the Cleveland Indians as the major leagues’ first black manager. But an even more important milestone of progress occurred June 19, 1977, when the Indians fired him. That was colorblind equality.
Managers get fired all the time. The fact that the Indians felt free to fire Robinson — who went on to have a distinguished career managing four other teams — showed that another racial barrier had fallen: Henceforth, African Americans, too, could enjoy the God-given right to be scapegoats for impatient team owners or incompetent team executives.
George used this analogy to imply that America is likely to re-elect a president with a bad economy and troubled foreign conflicts because as he states below,
Perhaps a pleasant paradox defines this political season: That Obama is African American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC’s excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up. Instead, the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure — thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him — seems especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president. If so, the 2012 election speaks well of the nation’s heart, if not its head.
I know his statement is condescending. More concerning is that it is wrong and those reading his entire article without historical knowledge are likely to have a diminished view of the President and his achievements. This is dangerous specifically because he is the first non-white president and many Americans absent real proof continue to view blacks and other minorities as inherently less capable or less intelligent.
When I just got out of college, I was anti-Affirmative Action specifically because I always knew as I went to lunch with my co-workers (we were all senior engineers) they assumed I was there because of affirmative action and not my qualifications. When President Obama got elected, many that were upset started making silly statements about America no longer needing Affirmative Action. I remember getting so perturbed that I made the following CNN iReport video that actually got played on CNN.
George Will is allowing a recessive racism and ideology to cloud his thinking. It is fact that because of the nature of supply side economics and how resources are allocated that the return to full employment for each successive downturn has increased dramatically. After-all one must remember that George Bush’s net job creation in his entire 8 years was 2.5 million (worse than Carter’s 10.5 million in 4 years or his dad’s 3 million in 4 years). I give a breakdown of job creation, healthcare, and Republican v Democratic policies in my book “As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom” (would make a good read before the election).
The decimation of our economy as well as the substantial transfer of wealth from the middle class to the very few at the top mean that disposable income is reduced each cycle given that the rate at which the rich get richer is greater that the growth rate of the wealth and disposable income of the middle class. This is a systemic problem that President Obama inherited. It has been in existence for 30+ years and will likely take that long to unwind by substantially increasing taxation on the wealthy’ s passive income since they were recipients of a gift from our country based mostly on bad policy as opposed to their worth, value, or production for society.
George Will instead of acknowledging that Mitt Romney is an inept politician, a Plutocrat unable to connect to middle class Americans, and a citizenry that is becoming more politically savvy and read decided to simply use the race card. Americans won’t likely re-elect President Obama because he is our first black president. They will likely re-elect him because Mitt Romney is unfit for the presidency. As a black man, it saddens me that someone with George Will’s platform and intellect will stoop to this level to divide our country because the outcome he would prefer is likely unattainable.