Is Kathy Cook, head of Kansas Families for Education, a self-styled advocacy group for Kansas public education, using a false claim of racism to advance her political goals and discredit an opponent?
Yes, she is.
At issue — in Cook’s mind, anyway — is a photo used to illustrate a story about Kansas public school funding at Kansas Liberty. That’s a subscription news site published by Mary Pilcher Cook, a conservative Kansas senator.
The photo is visible on the front page of Kansas Liberty, although it isn’t present on the article’s own page, which seems to follow the usual practice at this site that covers Kansas news.
Somehow, because the model in the photograph is black, Cook makes the leap and asserts that school funding is a racially-charged issue.
And for some reason, the Lawrence Journal-World thinks Cook’s charges are newsworthy.
Cook even tries to link the use of the photo to a common charge of the left: that anyone who criticizes any of President Barack Obama’s policies or actions is de facto racist.
Don’t liberals like Cook tell us that we live in a post-racial world, that we’re supposed to be beyond things like this?
Some people, however, will use any device for political benefit. A recent column by Thomas Sowell started with this: “Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United States would mark our entering a ‘post-racial’ era, when we could finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us. That was quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically, financially, and socially.”
It’s really quite shameful for Kathy Cook to try to gain a political advantage for her cause by using trumped-up charges of racism where none exists.
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