The Fourth of July

Mr Frank Rich, in his column today in The New York Times starts with:

ALL men may be created equal, but slavery, America’s original sin of inequality, was left unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence signed 234 years ago today.

Not to take away from the suffering of Black slaves, but I think anti-Catholicism is right up there with slavery as "America's original sin".

Mr Rich does make a going point when he says:

Yet paradoxically the news in New York was preceded by happier tidings from South Carolina, where the flag of the Confederacy still flies at the state Capitol. Republican primary voters there gave victories both to an African-American candidate for Congress, Tim Scott, and an Indian-American gubernatorial hopeful, Nikki Haley. Liberals have argued that these breakthroughs come with a caveat: Scott and Haley are often ideologically to the right of even their conservative competitors. True enough, but that doesn’t alter the reality that some very conservative white voters in the land of Strom Thurmond did not let any lingering racial animus override their other convictions. They voted for Haley, the daughter of Sikh immigrants, despite the urging of a local G.O.P. official that they reject a “raghead.”

At this point he moves beyond ideology to accepting that people of all political persuasions can move beyond racism, and have.

Then he goes on to condemn Senator Strom Thurman for having a child out of wedlock and not acknowledging her publicly.  This is not France.  We tend to discourage one's mistress from standing next to one's wife at one's grave.  Given who we are as a People, I think it is significant that Strom Thurman put Ms Washington-Williams through college and provided for her in adulthood.  What would it have advantaged Ms Washington-Williams to have gone public before her Father's death?

Senator Thurman was a racist and an unattractive person because of that.  He accomplished much in his career, but his record will always be scared by his racism.  Many are trying to say that Senator Robert Byrd has atoned for his own racism, but there is not unanimity on this.

So, final summation is that there were good and bad points.  The Column ends:

On this Fourth, as on the 233 that preceded it, America is still very much a work in progress.

I think we would all agree with that, and add that we are generally headed in the proper directions.

Regards  —  Cliff