I get it: Everybody’s on a journey. I guess your comments were so disconcerting because this video wasn’t about liberals vs. conservatives. It wasn’t even about black conservatives, and hardly an attack on them.

Where we differ, however, is that I believe it IS about caring and empathy. One of the greatest challenges we face is our inability to imagine ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Again, I appreciate what Baratunde expressed. If you’re not familiar with him, please check him out. You’ll find that he’s hardly someone who plays the race card or plays the victim. If it’s okay for racists to advance complete BS about our president–and by extension, black people–it’s certainly equally valid for Baratunde (or anyone) to express how that makes them feel. Please understand that doing so doesn’t diminish him, doesn’t make him a whiner, and isn’t an attack on conservatives. It’s just an expression of how he and many of us felt.

So, when you said he’s pulled the race card, it had the effect of negating everything he said. That wasn’t fair. And quite frankly, I expect black folks to have more empathy than that towards each other.

Anyway, yes, I’m open to civil dialogue with open minded people. You’ve been “unbanned” from the group.

Be well.

Unfortunately, you only confirm my impressions of conservatives, black or white: You all seem to lack empathy. And black conservatives seem to be the worst, because you all seem like you’re always out to prove that you’re the exception. Like somehow, whatever happens to black people–literally or symbolically–has nothing to do with you. You–and I’m talking about you, Charles–are incapable of understanding that Baratunde was sharing his feelings about what transpired: A carnival barker brought a 4-year old issue to a head and made the President of the United States show his papers. Like he was some recently freed slave. Don’t believe me? Here’s what the NY Times said in today’s editorial about the whole incident:

“It is inconceivable that this campaign to portray Mr. Obama as the insidious “other” would have been conducted against a white president.”

Read the full piece here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=1&hp

So, no, I’m not really interested your poisonous rants in that space. And the fact that you don’t get that, the fact that you came with such an inflexible point of view, means you have work to do on yourself. And I’d prefer you did that work somewhere else.

Once you do so, however, you’ll certainly be welcomed to participate.