Monday, March 09, 2009

Is America a Nation of Cowards?

Earlier I watched on CNN a debate about Eric Holder's remarks about America being a nation of cowards when it comes to race, that we don't talk to each other enough about racial equality.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we -- I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards," Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month.'

His words have sparked a lot of debate. The President said he wouldn't have said it like that, that we've made a lot of progress.

It amazes me that an Attorney General, the first black Attorney General in America, can provoke some serious debate about racial equality in America. And he does this as the first black Attorney General, working for the first black President.

I disagree that we are a nation of cowards, but human beings in general can be quite naive and are often slow to improve. I've never lived in the South, and I can only imagine what life would have been like for a black man living in Alabama or Mississippi in 1965.

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