His opponents on both sides of the aisle are trying to make hay with Obama’s comment about the “typical white person” who is afraid of black men. But they miss the point entirely. He’s not throwing his grandmother under the bus, as some are wont to say. He’s not trying to insult white people. He’s merely illustrating an unfortunate truism about American culture, which Chris Rock touched upon a long time ago:

When I go to the money machine at night, I ain’t looking over my back for the media. I’m looking for niggers!

In America, the darker your skin is, the more you are feared. It sucks, but it’s true. It’s not just white people who do this. Brown people do it to. Even black people can be conditioned to be fearful of black people.

Because black people hate black people, too. Everything white people don’t like about black people, black people don’t like about black people.

But everyone is trying to hide behind the facade of political correctness. I can hear it now. I’m not a racist. How dare you call me a racist? But by definition, if you partake of American culture, you’re a racist. Even people of color can be racist.

The first step to recovery is recognizing the problem. Americans, especially white people, but including many people of color, continue to pretend that there is no problem, that racism is some relic from the past (even though fifty years ago, it was still legal to segregate.) People keep trying to pretend that we have a level playing field, and that anyone crying “racism” is merely playing the race card and trying to leverage their skin color for an unfair advantage.

Barack is keeping it real. The majority of American History has been hostile to people-of-color, and to pretend that this history is over and done with—that this history has no ramifications on the present—is to stick your head in the sand.