The Cocoa-Puff Challenge

Posted at Renew America

Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (R-FL) can hardly host a town hall meeting or public event without being harassed by rowdy protesters who resent the Florida Congressman’s conservative politics.  West’s events are regularly disrupted by “sunshine blowing” CAIR activists, former Air America radio hosts, Robocall campaigners, and confused white women who mistakenly criticize West over issues they actually agree upon.

Always the gentleman, Allen West has even been accused by Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) of wearing “extreme disrespect as a badge of honor.”  Debbie believes West “thinks it’s ok to objectify and denigrate women.” Rest assured, if such an outrageous accusation was hurled in Barack Obama’s direction the media would interpret it, as a racial slur, insinuating that the accuser believes the hip-hop culture, notorious for “objectifying and denigrating women,” is endemic to all men of color.

Funny, when Debbie made the remark the NAACP and Al Sharpton didn’t demand an explanation for such a racially narrow-minded, Harry Reid, “light-skinned-lack-of-Negro-dialect” comment. Maybe it’s because besides having coffee and donuts with Joe Biden the left is otherwise occupied with identifying and rooting out every trace of explicit and “‘implicit’ (or unconscious) prejudice” wherever it manifests.

The left-wing media, together with the Democrat Party, work in tandem to keep the issue of prejudicial intolerance alive, even going so far as to say that public rejection of a healthcare policy instituted by the first African-American/bi-racial president is rooted in racism. In liberal circles, it’s understood that when Americans reject health care reform, it’s not loss of quality and choice or the threat of rationing or denied benefits that cause a negative public response, it’s purely a melanin issue – just ask racism Geiger counter Chris Matthews.

If increased numbers are a true measure for success and if Newt Gingrich calling Obama “The most successful food stamp president in American history” resulted in Newt being labeled a racist, why wasn’t the liberal female who bombarded Allen West with “coded racially-tinged language” also accused of racism?

Those on the left have redefined a “racist” as any person who disagrees with a black liberal’s policy. If a white American opposes anything Obama says, does, or bumbles – it’s automatically defined as racism.  Remember Jimmy Carter, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning ex-President who simultaneously expressed the opinion and instigated racial tension by saying that those with differing opinions who stand “against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American?”

Even black presidential hopeful Herman Cain recognized the absurdity of such a statement when he said: “People who oppose Obama are said to be racists – so I guess I’m a racist.” Yet a similar logic is never extended toward black conservatives when liberal whites oppose their politics, because men like Colonel Allen West and Herman Cain don’t count due to their Uncle Tom status.

It could be that the media ignores slurs directed toward Allen West because according to the left’s standards he’s been spared the same level of mean-spirited racial attacks as those suffered by Barack.

Think of it – West has had zero debate surrounding his place of birth, which was Atlanta Georgia; religion, which is Christian; or missing college transcripts from the University of Tennessee, Kansas State or US Army Command and General Staff Officer College.  Not one single person has mentioned West’s pastor or cast aspersions on his race or background by linking him with radical associates.

Moreover, unlike Obama, thus far Mr. West has avoided bigoted questions surrounding racial hot potatoes like government spending and health care reform.

Nonetheless, the black Florida Congressman did receive a “non-toxic” albeit suspicious “white powder substance” in the mail.  He had his Social Security number disclosed in a Democrat Party “opposition mailer,” and coincidentally managed to settle in a town with the slavery-suggestive name Plantation, Florida, all of which could have been but is yet-to-be interpreted as color-driven bigotry.

One possible reason the issue of race is ignored for some and over-emphasized with others may hinge upon affiliation with Tea Party activists with whom the African American Allen West identifies.  If racist tendencies are determined purely on acceptance or rejection of all things Obama then according to liberals, even disagreeable black politicians can be racists, especially if associated with the Tea Party, which liberals are convinced is one hood short of the Ku Klux Klan.

Allen West, a victim of attacks that would certainly be interpreted as racist if his political persuasion tended left, shared his observations on the subject of media dismissal of what would be deemed racism if it were happening to Barack Obama: “I find it interesting that in all of these instances, the media simply dismissed the incidents. One might wonder – is it open season on a principled black conservative?  I wonder what the reaction would have been if I were a Democrat?”

Truth is, in an effort to take the spotlight off a seething boil called the Obama presidency, the media is gearing up to make race the central issue in the 2012 campaign. The game plan is to brand everyone a racist, including black candidates whose politics don’t align with President Obama’s, while at the same time dismissing what would otherwise be considered offensive if directed toward the President.

For example, on Fox News, liberal talk radio host/ Fox contributor Alan Colmes told Jamie Colby and Republican Tea Party pundit Angela McGlowan that both Herman Cain and Allen West were “Coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs®.” Racist watchdog Colmes never mentioned Sugar Pops® or the diverse multi-colored cereal Trix® and thankfully refrained from adding Count Chocula® to the mix.

Inane silliness aside, if the Obama race-baiting left refuses to discontinue the insanity then the right needs to demand equal time.  For starters, why not stipulate that racially-tinged slurs tying together brown cereal and being cuckoo with black conservatives be publicly acknowledged as racism by those who blindly throw around such baseless allegations.

Moreover, if the left insists on using a bizarre “food-stamp-president” paradigm to identify racists, then references to Cocoa Puffs and allusions to hip-hop mentality should certainly qualify for inclusion in the bigotry blame fest. The bottom line is this: If liberals make rules based on absurd criteria, black conservatives should be willing to help expose their illogic by demanding the left submit to the same standards to determine what is and is not racism that those on the left demand of everyone else.