Please don't interrupt me, I'm daydreaming.
There's nothing so grand as avoidance when you've got problems—or at least that's the solution to improving the country's race relations Scott Walker floated over the weekend,
reports Igor Bobic.
Walker was campaigning outside a restaurant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, when a reporter asked him about the anniversary of the death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and what it portends for race relations in South Carolina. The governor answered that Americans should emulate the families of the victims of the Charleston church shooting.
"One, I think in general if anyone focuses on racial discord we’re going to get more (of that)," Walker said in a video posted by Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge. "If we focus on unity we’re going to get more of that... The families of the massacre in Charleston showed us the way."
The families of the Charleston shooting victims made an incredible show of strength and grace, no doubt. But Walker's prescription for healing the country's racial divisions amounts to this—victims of unfair, unjust, or even murderous behavior should simply rise above and focus on things that unite us.
So basically, we should all just ignore racism and racial inequity and then when that ignorance produces something undeniably horrific—like the Charleston massacre—we should call upon the victims for a superhuman show of character.
Why not just say, hey, if you're going to be critical, then shut up.
Of course, it's uncomfortable for Republicans to talk about race, racism, and racial inequities since their policies typically exacerbate all three. Walker's no exception.
Soon after taking office, he defunded a program that tracked the race of people stopped by police, even though black residents of Madison’s Dane County were found to be more than 97 times more likely to go to jail for a drug crime than a white resident. Now, the Governor’s new budget proposes an $8 million jail expansion in Dane County, at the same time many social services are being eliminated.
Now that Wisconsin isn't tracking racial profiling anymore, maybe it doesn't exist.