What Immigrants Can Teach Obama About America
My most recent letter to the Wall Street Journal Editors
Former President Obama recently criticized GOP presidential candidates Tim Scott and Nikki Haley by saying “There’s a long history of African American or other minority candidates within the Republican party who will validate America and say, ‘Everything’s great, and we can make it.” Obama said that approach does not include “a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in this society, and we need to do something about that…and that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board published and op-ed, titled, “Why Barack Obama Attacks Tim Scott,” and part of its explanation was,
“If Republicans ever broke through to win 20% of the black vote, for example, Republicans would become the majority party. Democrats want to keep racial tensions boiling with accusations about “Jim Crow 2.0” and “systemic racism” lest more minority voters give GOP candidates a hearing.
Mr. Scott in particular is a threat because, as he often notes, his life story symbolizes the country’s racial evolution. He has never sugar-coated America’s racist history, noting how he has experienced it in his own life. But he doesn’t use that as an excuse to deny progress.
His ideas to reduce poverty are also far better than Mr. Obama’s default to government dependency and failing public schools. Mr. Scott wants to free minorities from union schools and escape poverty by giving them more economic opportunity. Those ideas are a dagger pointed at the heart of the progressive project that sustains a permanent underclass dependent on Democratic welfare programs. That is the real reason Mr. Obama is attacking Mr. Scott and Ms. Haley.”
I wrote a letter to editors at the WSJ, and it was published last Saturday. For those of you who have no WSJ subscriptions, here is the full text of my letter:
Former President Obama’s unbecoming criticism of Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, two minority GOP presidential candidates, saddens me (“Why Barack Obama Attacks Tim Scott,” Review & Outlook, June 20). Sen. Scott and former Gov. Haley’s faith in America is rooted in their adversity-shattering experiences. They are role models and inspirations. They convey authenticity when they say, “We can all make it,” the sentiment that Mr. Obama denigrates.
It is disappointing that despite all the fame, fortune and popularity the former president has gained in this nation, he is unwilling to “validate America,” as he puts it. As an immigrant, I share Mr. Scott and Ms. Haley’s faith in America because I came to this nation with nothing. But now I live the American dream, with a loving family and financial security.
Millions of immigrants who came before and after me have done the same, all driven by the belief that “we can all make it” here. If Mr. Obama is interested in honestly accounting for our nation’s past and present, I wish he would begin by speaking to people like us.
Good letter, Helen. Obama and the other Democratic race hustlers do a huge disservice to the minorities they claim to champion, by lying to them that they're victims and need the government to save them. The stories of millions of successful minority members -- and immigrants like you who came to America with nothing and have achieved the American dream -- prove they're wrong. And by implication, show that the race hustlers are in it for themselves. They *need* alleged victims to "save" in order to keep and grow their political power and bank accounts. It's evil.