The real conversation about race many of us would like to have is impossible as long as people like Toure are given the lead off position. Watch him discuss Bill Cosby here.  Toure claims Cosby’s perspective is “dangerous”. This is called projection . Toure’s perspective is clearly the dangerous one. Toure, Jackson, Sharpton and the vile racist Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. all cling to the exhausted concept that everything is about race at all times as if their livelihoods depended on it. This is because their livelihoods do depend on it.

Toure has every right to his views and reasonable people have every right, in fact every duty, to note that his views are paternalistic, destructive and putrid. Key elements of the Zimmerman/Martin case are still coming to light. One that is fading is the prejudgment that Zimmerman, a Hispanic/Caucasian man, acted out of racial hatred.

For hucksters like Toure the race line of attack cannot be allowed to fade. Without it they got nothing. No racial victimhood, no identity to market, no resentment to gin up, no audience. Nothing. We’ve seen this before in recent memory with the Duke rape case and Tawana Brawley. These fools – and yes, they are dangerous fools – rush in, work up a mob, get TV time, and twirl the race card. When the facts collapse they make no apology. Make no effort to temper their incendiary ways and hold steady for the next circus tent they can erect on the back of common sense and common decency.

Jackson, Toure, Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan do real damage to black Americans, and since the key word is “American”, they do damage to all of us. Forever harping on victimhood, forever perceiving the world through the eyes of Jim Crow, forever demanding that racism be perceived whether or not it actually exists, IS PATERNALISTIC. It is condescending, and infantilizing. It telegraphs that black Americans are incapable of rational judgement and responsibility.  This simply is not true.

Cosby’s take in the clip above is worthy of discussion and thought. I tend to agree with him though question its application in this instance. Regardless, it’s the view of an adult, speaking as an adult, to adults. Toure’s refutation of Cosby on the other hand is worthy of a toddler. He balls his fists, stands in the middle of the room, and squeals No! This must be all about race because I say so!

And say so he must. His personal ego identity depends on it. This is an addiction to blaming race. It’s a pathology. Toure can no more perceive that the death of Martin might not be about race than an alcoholic in his cups can wrap his mind around the idea of a few weeks without liquor.

Even if it turns our Zimmerman is a racist fiend, everything I wrote above stands. Sharpton and Co. don’t wait for facts and usually ignore those they don’t like when they emerge. From 1976 to 2005 95% of black murder victims were killed by blacks. (And whites overwhelmingly tend to kill other whites.)  If one is expected to have a “conversation about race” perhaps that is a stat Jackson and Sharpton should be forced to address. Perhaps the parents and loved ones of those killed would appreciate some leadership from within their community, instead of harping on invented racism. Imagine the past 30 years if Jackson and Sharpton had led the charge here. Thrown all their resources at addressing why blacks kill blacks so often. Imagine.

Of course, their answer is blacks kill blacks because of white racism. Whatever nugget of truth may be sequestered in that statement, it is useless in 2012. It has saved no lives. It will never save a life. It’s a statement, fueled by an ideology, that has harmed and will continue to harm black Americans and therefore all Americans.

Here’s a cold, brutal fact: In 2012 other than a few outlier hippies and Brentwood limo liberals, “white” America takes no responsibility for black on black violence. Concern is expressed, hands are wrung by a few 60s leftovers, roundtables that do not include post Boomer whites who have rational concerns occur and…that’s it.

Another fact: We’ll spend no more real money on intervention programs, there will be no more massive urban renewal projects. That ship has sailed. The parent’s white guilt has not been passed on to the children. Also, for the record, we’re broke. Much as it might give my old liberal heart a new skip, The Great Society is dead. It’s time to accept its death.

Meanwhile children and adults are killed in crime ridden, often black, neighborhoods. My God, I wish Al Sharpton had the balls to confront this. To use his bully pulpit to stop blaming, stare down his own tired ideology, and confront the aching fact that so much of black culture has disintegrated during the same era that he diverted us with Tawana Brawley. God damn it, the victims in those neighborhoods have value. They don’t suddenly attain value when a white man shoots. Father Boyle and Bill Cosby have more moral fiber in their toenails than Sharpton has in his entire being. The young men - our young men - in these neighborhood need leaders who look like them promoting responsibility and adulthood. What they get it gangsta rap, an NBA pipe dream, and “leaders” who’ve abandoned them to a life of grinding resentment and victimhood. Nothing is more galling in the last 40 years of American liberalism than the abdication of responsibility on this score via “multiculturalism”.

If we are to have the real race conversation adults who want to help must come to the table. If Toure and his ilk are the spokesmen on “one side” we’ll get nowhere. Sorry. The circa 1972 race meme is dead. The large majority is no longer interested. Most won’t admit they’ve moved on for fear that a millionaire white talking head who lives in a rich, all white neighborhood, will harangue them on MSNBC. But they have moved on.

Of course, getting nothing done, is exactly what the Toure’s of the world want. Their livelihoods and egos depend on nothing good, productive and helpful getting done. They are addicts.

Jackson, Sharpton, and Toure are the children in this conversation. They are more mature than the KKK and the neo-nazis…but not by nearly enough to move us forward.

Note: This blog is open to any who have another – reasonable – perspective.