SILENCE = ASSENT

A letter to The Boston Globe, in response to a Jeff Jacoby column critical of Barack Obama's race speech:

Double standard

JACOBY NAILED the race issue in his column. A double standard does exist, but not as Obama sees it.

As Jacoby suggests, it's OK for African-Americans to criticize this country, presumably because of all the suffering they endured. But it's not OK for them to be criticized for doing so.

SHERMAN H. GROSSMAN
Needham

You know what, Mr. Grossman? It's OK for you to criticize this country, too. It's your damn country, and if you don't like the way its leaders and plutocrats are running it, you can say so, too.

Every poll I read says the vast majority of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Every poll I read says the vast majority of Americans think the economy is a disaster and the war was a mistake. But complain? That would be terrible, wouldn't it? What do I think, this is supposed to be a government of the people?

Well, fine, Mr. Grossman. Just sit there and take it. And guess what? If you think there are problems in this country but you act as if you don't have the right to complain, everything will stay exactly the way it is. You're the sucker -- you and everyone else who thinks we have a moral obligation just to shut up and take it all the time.

(Via Aimai at If I Ran the Zoo, who also quotes a vile John Derbyshire mini-essay suggesting that white resentment of blacks is justified by poor treatment by the counter staff at the Department of Motor Vehicles, as if bureaucratic rudeness doesn't exist across a wide spectrum of races, colors, and creeds.)