I am a redneck Southern racist

By John Eidson

Please forgive me, black America. My white liberal brother-in-law recently told me in an email that he knows why I don't support Barack Obama -- he said it's because I am a "redneck Southern racist". To make sure I didn't miss the point, he sent another email the next day referring to me as a "racist pig". Wow.

I have had only limited contact with my brother-in-law over the last 43 years, so he has little way of knowing what is in my heart. Rather than accept that my opposition to Sen. Obama has nothing to do with racism, he soothes his festering case of liberal white-guilt at my expense by attributing to me the most hateful of human prejudices.

The hand grenade he threw my way might be justified if I had a history of hostility toward blacks. But my record is just the opposite. In my entire life, I have never done a single mean-spirited thing to any of my fellow citizens who happen to be African-American. To the contrary, I have extended numerous acts of kindness to black people, most of whom I had never previously met. When I informed my brother-in-law of that, he passed on a chance to apologize, or even soften his position. Instead, he sent another email that stated in so many words that I am nevertheless still a racist pig.

His hateful insinuations about me were not intended as a personal attack. Rather, they were a profound reflection of the twisted way he has been politically indoctrinated to view people who think like me. In his mind, only a white racist would believe that the social policies of the last forty years are largely responsible for the tragic conditions in much of urban America. In reply to that, I can only say that Bill Cosby is no white racist.

My theory is that my brother-in-law suffers from a self-induced mental disorder brought about by his own failure to have done more to help less fortunate people of color. Lack of money is certainly not the problem -- he has a white collar job, yet clings to the overwhelming bulk of his earnings for the benefit of himself and his family. He even bought a private plane.

His deep sense of white guilt might be helped if he was personally more charitable toward disadvantaged blacks in his own city. He could, for example, limit dining out to once or twice a month, and use the difference to help feed minority children who go to bed hungry each night within driving distance of his comfortable home. But I'm afraid he would never do such a thing, because it would cost him something, and that's not the way white-guilt liberals play the game. As Stokley Carmichael put it: "What the white liberal really wants is to bring about change that will not in any way endanger his position."

Thank you, Mr. Carmichael. I couldn't have said it better myself.


John Eidson is a white conservative who takes great pleasure in black success.