Yesterday it was announced that President Obama has chosen the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julian Castro, to be the next Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Castro was tapped by Obama for another Cabinet office several years ago, but he declined that offer. The press is already speculating that the appointment is an attempt to raise Castro’s profile on the national level so that he can become the Democrat nominee for vice-president in 2016.

I surmise that the Democrats’ motives go beyond merely getting Castro on the ticket. They think that if they get Castro’s profile out there they can turn Texas blue for the 2016 election. Does my speculation make me a racist?

I ask this because racism is the branding that befalls any Conservative who makes a comment about any minority — even more so if the minority is himself a liberal. Cases in point:

We all have heard ad nauseam of the continuing controversy surrounding 81-year-old Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who made remarks to his girlfriend in a private conversation. She recorded his comments and publicized them, leading to the NBA owners’ organization trying to force Sterling to sell the team.

This week there was a story about Robert Copeland, the 82-year-old police commissioner of a New Hampshire town who called President Obama the “N-word.” Copeland later confirmed in an email that he used the term publicly, saying that the “current occupant of the Whitehouse” (sic) “meets and exceeds [his] criteria for such.” Some officials and residents in the predominantly white town are calling for the commissioner to resign.

As I pondered these recent events, I was struck by the fact that these two old men were raised in a time when racism was truly ingrained in the culture of our nation. They were both born in the early 30s when segregation was the norm. I do not propose that we agree with these men in their thinking. Nor is their age an excuse for their opinions. However, I wonder what happened to our ability to shake our heads at stupidity and merely walk away from such ignorance. If the public is going to hold these men “accountable,” why not hold everyone accountable for their racist remarks? Cases in point:

Last month Mississippi Democrat Representative Bennie Thompson called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom” during an interview with a CNN reporter. In his opinion, Justice Thomas does not act like a black man should.

This is not the first time Justice Thomas has been attacked by racist black politicians. In February Alabama State Representative Alvin Holmes made statements on the floor of the State House that he does not like Clarence Thomas because he is married to a white woman.

Weeks later, the same racist Alabama politician further demonstrated his racist persona when he remarked on the House floor that no white mother would let her daughter give birth to a black man’s child. He offered to give $100,000 to anyone who could show him a bunch of white people who have adopted black children. Holmes reneged on his offer when a number of Alabama families with adopted black children rallied at the state capitol in protest to his racist remarks.

Just days after the Alabama rally, Ben West, a Democrat in the Tennessee House of Representatives demonstrated his racism. During a dinner meeting, West rambled on to the crowd and remarked that in his last election “there was a Hispanic, Republican policeman who ran against me. I still don’t know what the hell that is. Juan Borges, who is from Puerto Rican, was much more kind than he needed to be when he was asked about the remarks. He merely says that he does not know precisely what West meant by what he said.

And how can I not mention the New Jersey council woman and mayoral candidate who was caught on tape in a racist rant in which she used the “N-word”?

Marie Strumolo-Burke, a Democrat, was heard yelling in the background of the voicemail (left on Councilman Kevin Kennedy’s answering machine) that “This is terrible!  This is terrible! This is gonna be a f—-g n—-r town!”  Strumolo-Burke denied that the voice heard was hers, but a Michigan forensics lab, paid for by concerned citizens, performed an analysis and reported that there was an 85% chance that the voice was, in fact, Strumolo-Burke.

So, if racism is so abhorrent, and if the two octogenarians got what they deserved, why do the four Democrats, all of whom are public servants, get passes for their racist jabs? And what of Julian Castro, whose racist mother, Rosie, acts as manager for her sons’ political careers. Madre Castro helped found a “radical, anti-white, socialist Chicano party called La Raza Unida … that sought to create a separate country—Aztlan—in the Southwest”? Does that matter?

I am only trying to understand. After all, things aren’t always black and white.