"Racism" has been a spectacularly successful weapon only because those against whom it has been wielded by the race-baiters have taken the bait.

It's amazing what a difference a handful of months can make. 

There isn't one of us who can forget the euphoria by which millions, both at home and abroad, were overtaken in the days and months following President Obama's election. This historic event, we were promised by left- and right-leaning pundits alike, was guaranteed to usher in a new, post-racial or trans-racial millennium. During the presidential race, Obama's supporters, and, for that matter, Obama himself, labored inexhaustibly to impress upon the American psyche the notion that only "racism" could account for why anyone would impede history by voting against the young, charismatic Democrat contender. When Obama won with 53% of the vote — the first time in over four decades that a Democrat presidential nominee received the support of over half of the country — polls showed that both whites and, to an even greater extent, blacks, were more optimistic than ever about the future of race relations in America.

Some of us, however, looked upon the unfolding events with a skeptical eye. That Obama was already subtly playing the race card before he won the election even as he was promising to unite the country as president was enough to convince us that he was decidedly not the trans-racial candidate he pretended to be. But in addition to this consideration there was available an abundance of evidence — most importantly his own autobiography, Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, and his 20-plus year friendship with his "spiritual advisor" and pastor, the "black liberation theologian," Jeremiah Wright — that dispelled any conceivable doubts that the Age of Obama, far from being "colorless," would be potentially more racially charged than any other within (relatively) recent memory.        

We knew that far from diminishing, charges of "racism" on the part of the usual suspects in the media, government, and academia, would greatly increase, whether Obama won the election or not, but especially if he won. If he didn't win, his supporters would attribute his defeat to the "racism" of his white detractors. Yet Obama's victory, more so than anything else, threatened to incapacitate the "Racism Industrial Complex," for the very presence of a black American president conveys to the world, much more directly and compellingly than any statistics or elegance of language ever could, that whatever other obstacles threaten to impede the aspirations of black Americans, white "racism" was no longer one of them.

Those who have made their living as agents of the RIC ("Racism Industrial Complex") would become deathly fearful and desperate, we predicted, for the well from which they derived both immense professional and psychological benefits would now be in danger of forever drying up. The imagery, the symbolism, of a black American president would make it all too difficult to sustain their insistence, however sophisticated and abstract their arguments for it may be, that the rot of white "racism" continues to be an omnipresent evil in the fight against which enormous resources need to be deployed. It may sound impossible, given the regularity and frivolity of the charges of "racism" that they were leveling before anyone outside of Illinois heard of Obama, but RIC, we knew, would seek to double its efforts in finding "racism" in all manner of unsuspected places.

All of these predictions have come to fruition. Every criticism of Obama is now said to be motivated by racial animosity. But as RIC agents work tirelessly to deflect attention from the President's declining poll numbers and advance their agenda with spurious charges of "racism" against over half of the country that opposes his policies, what modicum of credibility they may have had they erode to the vanishing point, a point, that is, of no return.

What a beautiful paradox: in their attempts to further their interests at any and all costs — "by whichever means necessary" — including that of destroying others, both their self-avowed enemies as well as those for whom they claim to be the voice, RIC agents have all but succeeded in destroying themselves. Their weapon of choice, the bomb of the charge of "racism," is blowing up even as I write this, yet this time it is the bombers who are the casualties.

This is a great day for those of us who wish to see both the term "racism" — a term that has caused exponentially more damage to innocents than any phenomenon that its been used to designate — as well as the Racial Industrial Complex drop down the memory hole of history. For this we have to thank, ironically, the agents of RIC, beginning with President Obama himself. 

Yet the routine targets of RIC can't let its agents do all of the work in dismantling it. We must do our part too. Here is what I suggest: when Election Day arrives, vote for no one who has so much as remotely suggested that he or she would be willing to contribute to RIC. Also, between now and then and forever more, when blatantly contrived indictments of "racism" are leveled at you by the usual suspects, refuse to dignify them with a response. "Racism" has been such a spectacularly successful weapon only because those against whom it has been wielded by the race-baiters have taken the bait. 

Ignore the bait and "the race card" will be effective no more.