The Identity Culture

Every now and then Thomas Frank, over at the WSJ, puts out an okay column. Today's, The Gates of Political Distraction, is one of those, though he still cannot help his liberal leanings. In this column he did a pretty good job of placing the blame for the Gates' affair squarely where it belongs on Gates and the Obama. The point that is missed, though, is that the affair really doesn't have much to do with class-politics (lets face it, both the Obama and Gates are pretty low-class people). It is about race-identity politics. As long as there are Gates's and Obamas in the world there will be race politics. Gates is a professor of African-America Studies a course more useless than basket weaving. These studies courses arose out of the Civil Rights movement and have created a host of high profile professors, Gates, Cornel West and others who have recently come under scrutiny for what some might call un-professorial behavior. These courses were created to give academic credence to the victim movement. One can understanding taking a history course that traces African-Americans in America but a course that tries to explain to black people that they are black and it is whities fault - that I don't understand. Gates should apologize for being an ass, and the president should apologize for shooting his mouth off out of ignorance.