When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.” Epictetus
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Suppose that you were pulling down millions in your chosen line of work, would you be grateful? Would you give any credit to the country where you made the money?
Not if you are Charlie Rangel, Morgan Freeman, Harry Belafonte, or Oprah Winfrey, all of whom have cleaned up from "jobs” they hold in America, their net worth, respectively, racking up to between $1-$2.5 million, $90 million, $28 million, and $2.7 billion.Every time someone plunked down their money for a movie ticket, Freeman made out big time.
Whenever the Banana Boat song hit the airwaves, Belafonte got his cut.
Oprah refers to "her” mountain near her 732 acres in Hawaii. That kind of says it all, and, not for nothing, but the Obamas are living better and doing better financially than they ever did in their lives with their current gig.
All of these black Americans owe America big time.
Now, none of these people were living in China, or Cuba or Russia or their beloved Africa when they made their fortunes.
Nope. They lived in the United States of America, but when asked, all they can remember is coming over on a slave ship.
To them they still live under the repressive Jim Crow laws. To them the calendar still reads 1876.
And I’m sick to death of it. And, not only that, I am personally insulted on behalf of America.
Between Al Sharpton, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison and the entire Congressional Black Caucus, black entertainers like Jay- Z, Spike Lee and Jamie Foxx, the entire Obama administration and Oprah, every time these people open their mouths, it is to "educate” us about how rotten our country is.
And I’m sick to death of it.
This week with Oprah’s new movie due out, we were subjected to one more "Apology Tour,” but this time the apologies were coming from Oprah.
Call me crazy, but didn’t we listen to 25 seasons of Oprah’s educating us on spirituality and forgiveness and love? Where’d that all go?
Don’t know.
She appeared on every TV show known to man to plug her new movie and when she did, she chose to talk about the "millions” of black lynchings in this country.
Not only Number One: was she factually and historically incorrect, but Number Two: she showed an incredible insensitivity by choosing to elevate these already tragic events to the level of the Nazi extermination of the Jews.
She could have done differently, but instead she chose to throw her canister of gasoline onto racial fires already ignited by Obama.
Yes, whenever Oprah gets a chance, she makes movies that pick at the festering sore of slavery and the resultant abuses with nary a word about the wonders of her country.
Just like Obama. Just like Sharpton. Just like Julian Bond. Just like Holder, she exhibits a black angst leveled squarely at America that is unsettling.
And I’m sick to death of it.
The world is about Obama. Dispensing justice is about Holder. Oprah’s magazine is about her, her new movie "The Butler” is about her, and, what a surprise, the Civil Rights Movement is about her, too.
And I’m sick to death of it.
When given the chance to make a better world, these pitiful black Americans, citizens of the greatest country in the world, choose to use their time in the spotlight to shamelessly tear their country down.
They choose to center their public discourse on lynchings and police brutality in our country’s past, but do they mention that this is a country that has made greater strides in every area of human rights than any other nation on earth, unlike Russia and China and Cuba and Africa?
Do they mention that this is a country where an entire nation went to war to eradicate slavery?
No, they don’t. I wonder why.
Did any of them tell you that the NAACP was founded by a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of Abolitionists?
Or that the Republican Party emerged in 1843 to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act – an act which threatened to continue and extend slavery into the territories?
No, I guess they didn’t, and I wonder why.
Oh, and by the way, did they mention the Kansas-Nebraska Act was designed and supported by Democrats?
Or that the Republican party, the "party of Lincoln,” under his guidance, abolished slavery?
Did they speak proudly of the abolitionists -- both black and white – and the scores of former slaves, native Americans and people from churches of all denominations who banded together to aid black slaves escape via the Underground Railroad? It’s a great American story. Did they tell it?
No, no, and no.
No, they didn’t because spewing their black hatred is more important to them than facts. Maybe it’s because "hatred" pays off better at the box office or in getting votes when you pander to other uninformed, perpetual malcontents.
Yet, because we are a country lucky enough to have a First Amendment, we have to listen to Rangel call the Tea Party "white crackers;” to Morgan Freeman calling the Tea Party "the weak, dark, underside of America whose only goal is to get the black man out of the White House;” to Belafonte calling former Secretary of State Colin Powell a "house nigger,” and MSNBC’s Toure Neblett calling Dr. Ben Carson an "Uncle Tom.”
This group of disgruntled black Americans may want to think they are courageously refighting the war against apartheid, but they aren’t because America doesn’t have an apartheid problem.
And when Nelson Mandela fought that fight, these disgruntled black Americans missed the point. He fought with love in his heart for his country and a desire for a better world, as did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination,” Mandela said.
"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Our famous, disgruntled, black Americans missed the point. But the world gets the point. The world knows what they are doing.
When powerful Americans disparage their own country, it’s a lose-lose situation. The only thing accomplished is that the world sees all of us as a nation of ungrateful fools and our president as weak.
And it’s all coming home to roost, just like Rev. Wright’s chickens, but this time they’re flying to Obama.
It is manifesting as a lack of respect and emboldened terrorism from every corner of the world.
A lack of respect for a president who doesn't know how to lead here and abroad; who does not seek justice for its citizens killed in Benghazi; who draws lines in the sand and then does nothing when the line is crossed; and most recently and notably snubbing Russia and its president, looking less like he is enforcing a defined foreign policy and more like he is having a temper tantrum.
So when Obama takes the steps at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King’s "I Have a Dream Speech,” what do you think he’ll say?
Do you think he’ll praise America, or will it be like the "Thanksgiving Speech,” where he counseled "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience?”
Will it be like his "Cairo Speech” when he apologized for U.S. colonialism? Or will he use the opportunity to praise racial progress in America?
When yet one more speech is done, will he have said anything that matters?
Mandela and King knew what they lived for and what they were prepared to die for.
What is this guy prepared to die for? Or for that matter the whole raft of ungrateful black Americans like Oprah?
Hold the line, America.