-By Warner Todd Huston
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told graduates in Maryland that they should ignore “hateful rants” like that from Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Holder said that voter ID and “zero tolerance” policies in schools are worse on minorities than anything Sterling could have done.
Speaking before 850 graduates at Baltimore’s Morgan State University on Saturday, May 17, Holder warned students not to get caught up in the hype of “intolerant public statements,” but to be more worried about the racism inherent in the U.S.A.
“…policies that disenfranchise specific groups are more pernicious than hateful rants,” Holder told the students.
Holder’s commencement address comes amid a flurry of cancellations by other speakers who were protested by students across the country. Actions that one New Republic writer saidis an example of how “The rise of liberal intolerance [that] is ruining debate on college campuses.”
The Attny Gen. went on, saying, “Proposals that feed uncertainty, question the desire of a people to work, and relegate particular Americans to economic despair are more malignant than intolerant public statements, no matter how many eyebrows the outbursts might raise”
Holder said that the court system is against minorities, that it “punishes them unequally.”
This, he said, “has a much more negative impact than misguided words that we can reject out of hand.”
The top U.S. law enforcement officer did not mention Sterling by name, but his allusions were quite obvious.
He alluded to recent public comments as “jarring reminders of the discrimination.” He also noted incidents of “outbursts of bigotry” and “isolated, repugnant, racist views” that had been in the news of late.
Holder warned students to pay less attention to these controversies, “Because if we focus solely on these incidents–on outlandish statements that capture national attention and spark outrage on Facebook and Twitter–we are likely to miss the more hidden, and more troubling, reality behind the headlines.”
“The greatest threats do not announce themselves in screaming headlines,” Holder said.
From there Holder went on to criticize Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for presiding over a recent decision to uphold Michigan’s ban on race-based college admissions and noted that voter ID laws were made to prevent minorities from voting.
Referencing the 60th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, Holder told the students that he was a direct beneficiary of that decision.
“After all, 60 years and one day ago, schools and other public accommodations could legally refuse entry to men like my father. Today, that devoted soldier’s son stands before you as the 82nd attorney general of the United States of America–proudly serving in the administration of the first African American president to lead this nation,” Holder said.
“That’s a powerful illustration of the greatness and possibility that is America–and the debt we owe to all who have dedicated their lives to building the more just and more perfect union that remains our common pursuit.”
All of this from the most corrupt and lawless Attorney General this nation has ever seen.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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