"Al Qaeda is Racist", cont.

President Obama and his Administration's observation in the wake of the Uganda bombings that "Al Qaeda is racist" has some chuckling that this is simply a case of political correctness run amok. I think not, and stand by yesterday's post that the Administration's initiative, if that's what it is, reveals a fundamentally racist perspective. That is, at some level they actually accept the perverse notion that the murder of people of white European stock is less objectionable than the killing of black Africans. Why? Well, because they somehow deserve it, of course. But even if the chief motivation is other than that, criticism more than derision is warranted.

First, let's assume it is indeed simply a case of a very liberal Administration's reflexive political correctness. What policy prescriptions can we expect to flow from it? Consider the un-named White House official's comment: "Al Qaeda recruits have said that al Qaeda is racist against black members from West Africa because they are only used in lower level operations." What does this mean? If Al Qaeda were to institute a more aggressive affirmative action program to recruit black terrorists to higher levels of leadership within the organization, then the Obama Administration would get off their back? "Sure, they're murdering terrorists, but at least they're not racist. You gotta giv'em that." Please. (That reads more like derision, doesn't it? Oh well, what can you do?)

Second, if the Administration thinks it's pursuing some clever, Metternich-like, preemptive foreign policy, winning the hearts and minds of black Africans before Al Qaeda does, it instead only demonstrates its rank amateurishness. Liberals are so practised, and so relatively successful, at playing the race card here in the U.S., they think it will work in a similar fashion around the globe. But it won't. Black Africans, without the same history of slavery and Jim Crow, do not think of race in the same way Americans do. To put it bluntly, race hustling doesn't, and won't work there.

While I guess it's encouraging to see this Administration passionately moved by the murder of innocents at last, it would be better still if this "post-racial" president actually lived up to his billing as just that.