Vanden Heuval: ‘Pale Male, Stale’ GOP Was Upset that Holder Worked Against Racism

“The opposition to the president has been so staggeringly racially framed that it is the case certainly that the Attorney General became kind of the heat shield or the lightning rod because Attorney General Holder spoke more passionately, more aggressively about what`s his role, about structural race issues in this country, whereas the president has spoken in more interpersonal ways. Holder understood that unless we begin to dismantle mass incarceration in this country, and unless we begin to take on the field drug war, millions of African-Americans are going to be consigned to a life that isn`t part of toward a more perfect union. So I think Holder has played a very important role and I know he has a commitment, as he said at the press conference, to continue to work to bring together communities of color with law enforcement to find ways of bringing that dialog together. That isn't just interpersonal, which is also valuable, but it touches and takes on the structural forces which -- by the way, the right isn't that stupid they knew what was Holder was trying to do, and they are very tied to ensuring that racism is not taken on effectively as they sound like a pale male in stale party of a different century.”