Belcher calls Herman Cain “racist, bigoted” for “blacks are brainwashed” remark
Cornell Belcher, speaking on television to Anderson Cooper and Ari Fleischer, accused Herman Cain of racism and bigotry for saying that the explanation for black Americans voting in such a lopsided way for Democrats is that they’ve been “brainwashed.” (96% of blacks are believed to have voted for Barack Obama in 2008; 88% of blacks are believed to have voted for John Kerry in 2004.)
Belcher said among other things:
… it’s really a teachable moment. You know, if I came on your show, Anderson, and I said, all Jewish people are brainwashed, I probably wouldn’t be invited back to CNN and I assure you the condemnation would be swift and it’d be powerful and be strong.
What Herman Cain said was a racist, bigoted statement and it should treated like a racist and bigoted person who makes those racist and bigoted statements.
Belcher seemed to think the comparison with making the same remark about Jewish voters was his trump card, ending debate, and indeed neither Cooper nor Fleischer were willing to answer him on that. Well, I am. The answer is YES: Jewish voters in America, to the extent they also vote for Democrats in a lopsided way, have been brainwashed in a similar way to black voters. (For the record I’m neither Jewish nor black, so by some people’s standards I’m totally out of line here but those people’s standards mean nothing to me.) I don’t use the term “brainwashed” in any clinical sense, and Herman Cain obviously wasn’t using it in that sense either. What I mean is that people can develop fixed political allegiances based not on open, thorough and fair thinking through all of the issues but based on falsehoods that are fed to them, intentionally or unwittingly, by close relatives and peers from the moment of their birth. This happens on all sides to a certain extent. It’s part of being human. But there are particular ways in which a very lopsided majority of both blacks and Jews in America have been led to automatically plump for the candidate with a (D) after their name. There are different roots in the past that explain how this has happened in each demographic camp but the facts on the ground today are that it is being perpetuated by a very strong version of group-think, and by the collective pressure and reinforcement of family and friends.
Of-course, every individual still is an individual, regardless of race, color or creed, and not everyone automatically or unthinkingly accepts what they’re “supposed” to believe regarding politics, no matter the pressure. Take, for example, Herman Cain!
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If I can say what I said above (and you’re damn right I can) then why should Herman Cain not be permitted to say it according to the likes of Cornell Belcher? Herman Cain is a black man born in segregated Georgia, in 1945. His mother was a cleaning lady and his father a chauffeur. Through his life he’s seen all of the changes, both in terms of the civil rights struggle and the shifts in political allegiances (blacks in the South used to vote largely Republican). Herman Cain has made up his own mind as to what political policies he supports and promotes, without regard to what the majority of people who look like him might think. Why shouldn’t he call it like he sees it with regard to the lack of independent and critical political thought in the black community? Sure it exists. You only have to look at the numbers. And sure it exists among Jews. And no doubt, to a certain extent, it exists in the other direction in other demographic groups. Say … Mormons, for example. I’m all for people thinking independently and critically about all political issues. In the end, if that happened—in the great shake-out—I’m convinced the good guys would win. (“Good guys” does not mean the Republican party establishment, by the way.) Journeying from being brought up in a conservative but often (because of human nature) blinkered fashion to being a rebellious and extremely liberal young adult is common, and natural. But in the end, in my opinion, true intellectual independence leads one to recognize that in this world some political ideas work reasonably well, if imperfectly, and some political ideas—as attractive and inspiring as they may at one point appear—simply don’t work, and in fact tend to make existing problems much worse.
It’s absurd to say that Herman Cain is racist and is bigoted for speaking an obvious truth about political group-think among too many black Americans. Questioning group-think is a good thing. Herman Cain has a rare opportunity to shake things up in this regard. God bless him.
