Harry Stein: “We remain stuck in this country on race—not only afraid to tell the truth, but also afraid to defend those who do.”
The racial referees who targeted Paul Ryan have been notably quiet about Kobe Bryant’s recent remarks.
Well, here we go again. Just weeks after Paul Ryan inflamed liberal opinion with his observations on the deficits of inner-city culture, some self-appointed “civil rights activists” are back in their preferred state of high dudgeon. Their (rather unexpected) target this time is basketball great Kobe Bryant. His sin? Asked while being profiled by The New Yorker about Miami Heat players donning hoodies in support of Trayvon Martin, Kobe expressed disappointment at the rush of so many blacks to side with Martin simply out of racial solidarity. “I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American,” he said, adding that if we’ve “progressed as a society, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right?”
The Ryan and Bryant cases have one important thing in common. Both men were absolutely, inarguably right. Indeed, that it is presumed to take courage to publicly say what they did—that doing so is almost sure to lead to denunciation by defenders of the lamentable racial status quo—says way too much about why we continue to make such pitiful progress on racial issues.
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