Mr. Eric (gun ban extremist, now Attorney General)

Holder, I have a comment...

So, I am a coward because I am white and I really don't want to have "meaningful" discussions on race. Ok, here's your coward, you miserable race-baiting bastard.

My "meaningful" discussion on race involves...

What's up?, How's it goin'? How's yer Momma and them? Who ya got in the Iron Bowl? Whatcha got on for the weekend? Ya want some help with that?

...you know friendly conversation with... OMG, all of my friends. I don't really care about race, but you do and that worries the daylights out of me. Because it feels like race bait when you call me a coward for being white and it feels like friendly gab when I tell Tommy to bite my @ss and he gives me the finger.

Let me tell you something else that no one wants to talk about and maybe its not important to anyone but me... there is almost nothing that I would not do for my brother Tommy and, for that matter, any of my friends who are close enough to call brother. I mean that and I don't care if you don't believe me.

And, I don't use brother and brutha interchangeably. Brother is someone I feel kinship with at some level and Brutha is just a word I use interchangeably with man... you know... hey man, what's happenin'? v. hey brutha, what's happenin'? No difference in my mind, nor, apparently, in the minds of those whom I converse with every day. So you can take your version of race discussion and shove it.

Now to the stories that brought this out onto the printed page.

Let us start with the stark contrast in tragedy and reaction here...

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - how about the different public reactions from Texas to Louisiana to Mississippi... As an aside, I was in Gulfport, MS two weekends ago and there is an awful lot that is still flattened. Or, just has a set of concrete stairs rising from the ground and ending where the entry used to be. Still not much discussion of Mississippi and all that tragedy.

The difference between two weekends ago and summer of 2005 when we went down to Biloxi for the purpose of helping friends and parents of friends recover anything at all... 2005 was MOUNTAINS of debris and trash and wrecked homes... 2009 MOUNTAINS gone. It is all wrong... NOLA needs to shut it or everyone needs to care about more than just NOLA. Oh wait a minute, I am a coward and therefore need to be marginalized.

More recently... the Iowa floods of 2008 and the devastating effect of Winter 2008/2009 on Kentucky. Not much on the news about either of these.

Lastly... the most recent reason for this post is this MSNBC Story...

"The NAACP is accusing Wells Fargo and HSBC of forcing blacks into subprime mortgages while whites with identical qualifications got lower rates.

Class-action lawsuits were to be filed against the banks Friday in federal court in Los Angeles, Austin Tighe, co-lead counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told The Associated Press.

Black homebuyers have been 3 1/2 times more likely to receive a subprime loan than white borrowers, and six times more likely to get a subprime rate when refinancing, Tighe said. Blacks still were disproportionately steered into subprime loans when their credit scores, income and down payment were equal to those of white homebuyers, he said.

Melissa Murray, vice president of corporate communications for Wells Fargo & Co., called the lawsuit "totally unfounded and reckless." The bank is receiving federal bailout funds." -- Banks steered blacks to bad loans, NAACP says - MSNBC dot com story from Friday, 13 March 2009 - Associated Press

This screams race baiting... Louis Farrakhan, Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, et al would be proud. In my reading of the story, there was no data, just statements. Nice way to create a "feel" of wrong being done with the evidence not in... well, evidence.

Let me also add, that if this be true, that these banks were race-biased and intended harm or to take advantage solely because of race... those miserable ... just dissolve the bank charters, distribute the debts and assets then fire everyone associated. Period... there is no excuse for such blatant acts of idiocy. Oh wait a minute, that might just set a dangerous precedent. People would have to be accountable for ALL their actions. Wouldn't want that... just ask a recent mother of 14.

You know, if we didn't have politicians, attorneys and activist judges to create problems for us, we might not have any problems to worry about.

Thanks y'all for giving me something to worry on.

Last - all of you who are going to or are going to want to flame the daylights out of me and/or this post... read it, think on it and then discuss. I will be happy to have discussion with anyone. There will be no screaming match, no inflammatory volleys and lastly no worse vulgarity than what I have already used.

-Dan