Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader’s blood pressure was raised a little yesterday after watching some of (and reading some of) new Attorney General Eric Holder’s comments on race yesterday in a speech to staff at the Justice Department. Your Maximum Leader will just use the AP story he saw yesterday as a starting off point. According to the AP:

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.”

Humm… Your Maximum Leader wonders why we don’t discuss race? Could it be because the voices of dissent on racial topics are silenced by the omnipresent threat of people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who are ready to brand anyone with an unpopular opinion an inveterate and unrepentant racist? It seems to your Maximum Leader that the problem is not that we are cowards and can’t speak about race; the problem is that you can’t have a conversation about race when the past actions of one conversant discourages future action of another (possible) conversant. Who wants to engage in a dialogue on race when one believes that the reward for discussion will be social stigmatism and marginization as a “wacky racist?” Perhaps this might be cowardice as Holder defines it.

Your Maximum Leader notices an affinity for many liberals to celebrate “speaking truth to power.” But that affinity doesn’t seem to extend to serious discussions about race. If one says that the economic misery of many inner city blacks could be the result of the breakdown of the traditional civil structures of the historic black community (like the family and strong churches); then one is chastized and marginalized because you are against non-traditional families (of any sort) or a religious nut.

Perhaps we should encourage all who want to talk about race to put aside childish ways of thinking about race. The most childish way of thinking about race in America is summarized as if you disagree with the leaders of the “black community” then you are a racist. This is really no different a mindset than your Maximum Leader’s son’s mindset that if he doesn’t get his way then the world is unfairly persecuting him. We need to recognize real persecution where it exists and act to end it. We also need to actively call out and marginalize those who will claim persecution where none exists.

Carry on.