If you haven't read James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me then I demand you go get a copy of it and read it. I would like to thank him for the Thanksgiving information presented here. James Loewen is what my college history professor would have referred to as a "revisionist historian," and oh did he loathe them. Mostly because they challenged his white washed version of history that he had been proudly presenting for years. So here it is, Thanksgiving is a crock, your vision of the pilgrims and Native Americans sitting down around the horn of plenty to a massive feast never happened. Almost everything you have come to believe was bull. Abraham Lincoln is the one that coined the phrase Thanksgiving, and the word pilgrim didn't come around to being used until the 1870's. The whole concept of an autumnal harvest celebration was stolen from the Eastern Indians. It's all bunk plain and simple.
So why do we buy into the whole mythology. And by "we" I mean white folks. I am sure that there are a number of people of color that enjoy Thanksgiving traditions as much as the rest, but they were never included in the serene vision we have of the "first Thanksgiving." Well, we buy into it, and have for years because it fits a vision of the way we want to see ourselves as white people. The benevolent caretakers who were kind enough to invite the poor unfortunate Indians (we didn't call them Native Americans then, after all native would imply that they were here first and that somehow had claim to all of the land we took.). The fact is that the Native Americans were doing just fine before we showed up at the party with our diseases and weird ideology of what we could and couldn't take. In fact, if not for the Native Americans taking care of that first group of settlers, the settlers would have died. Bet they wish they could take that one back. White people want so desperately to buy into to this, or refuse to see the holiday for what it really represents because it calls for us to have personal accountability for our actions, past and present. Accountability is fine for all the people of color we accuse of mooching off welfare, committing vast numbers of crime, and rampant drug use, but for us, no way.
Thanksgiving in its traditions and folklore is just another way white society continues to rewrite history and push their ideology on everyone else. We were in the right back then, with God on our side committing mass genocide, and we're right now as justified by our inordinate control of any resources that would help a person succeed.
I don't celebrate thanksgiving, haven't for awhile. I like turkey though, and it's a good opportunity to talk to my kids about the way things really went down. I'm thankful for plenty of things, Thanksgiving just isn't one of them.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
So, you want a make a racist society?
I know a lot of the media and powers that be insist that racism is a thing of the past. In fact Lou Dobbs, the CNN reporter got infuriated at Condeleeza Rice and her response to Barrack Obama's speech on racial issues in America when she said that racism was an issue that needed to be discussed more. Poor Lou got so ramped up that he slipped up and called Condeleeza "cotton picking." I'm sure Lou didn't mean anything by it.
If racism isn't a real issue in America anymore, I thought about what a racist society would look like. What kinds of things would be required in order for the White people in our country to get back all of the power that they seem to believe they have lost as a result of affirmative action, and people espousing equal rights for all. So without further adieu here is my own plan for a racist society.
You need to be sneaky about how you do it. Out and out slavery won't work, and most White folks now days don't have the stomachs for lynchings, so you have to be clever. In any of the below examples you need to make sure that you have one or two examples that stand out as the exception to the rule. That way you can point them out and tell all the nay-sayers that they are over reacting. In no certain order here are some great starting points.
Education- First off you have to make education as inequitable as possible. After all if you want people held down, education or lack there of is a powerful first step. You need to ensure that the vast majority of the population you are trying to oppress can't attain the same academic standards that you have access to. A 75% drop out rate would be optimal, that way you can still have a token group that you can point to as successful. The 25% who do graduate will need to be tracked into middle management jobs, so as to further the White male power structure, but more on that later.
Seventy five percent sounds like an almost unobtainable goal. I mean that is, in reality, educational genocide, no one is gonna put up with that. Again, this is why you have to be sneaky. You really have to be careful about how you present education. In order to get the young people of color to go along with this you need to package education as a waste of time, or better yet as a "White thing." Not being seen as cool if you are White will be OK as long as we keep in mind that the end justifies the means. After all people of color are gonna see this whole thing coming a mile away, but if we keep them down and don't allow then equal access to a forum in which to air their grievances we should be alright.
So, if we can use the mainstream media as a tool to show that education is a White thing, and conversely the only way to be educated is to "act white" then we already have half our work done for us. Reading definitely has to be a White thing. Most of our literature has to be written by White authors aimed at a White audience, so even if we do get a few people of color that decide to better themselves through reading, it won't matter much because most of the info won't be targeted toward them anyway. That should add an extra obstacle in their way. That won't be enough though, their are still going to be some young people of color who insist on trying to play on a level field. That's when we hit em with peer pressure. Using the same media that portrayed education as a White thing now needs to be used to relay the message that it is "cool" to be uneducated if you are a person of color.
We can pay young musicians of color vast sums of money to help spread the image of a person of color as a thug, rebellious, and anti establishment. Have those same artist dress and act out the lifestyle that is defiantly anti white. After all, the real money is going to be made by the White executives who own the record companies so it's OK if a few of those same musicians get at least a little wealthy in the process. We need to make sure that they glamorize violence, misogyny, and a host of other things that aren't stereotypically "White." With all of that in place; the images, the ideologies, and a constant barrage by mainstream media that everything is OK we should be able to hit that magic mark.
Freedom- It's gonna be awfully hard for a group of people to rise above their current situation if we keep a good number of them under lock and key. Now this isn't slavery, this is protecting the public interest, and since we are building a racist society, we want that interest to be the "White" interest. So how do we do this? As stated above, people of color aren't stupid, we are making a big mistake if we believe that. Oh sure, outwardly we can treat them like their not as bright as we are, but behind the scenes we need to know that we are dealing with a crafty group of people who have survived the worst we could throw at them, and still manage to thrive, if not flourish in some cases. Step one is to keep our own interest in mind. Sentencing has to be in favor of White people, even when the crime is the same, we need to make sure that we keep the vast element of our White brothers and sisters out of the prison industrial complex. Oh sure, we need to put a few of the bad apples that are an embarrassment to us in there, but for the most part it really needs to be people of color if this is going to work. One way is to put sentencing laws in place that lean in the favor of White folks. If a certain drug is seen as a drug used more frequently by communities of color then we damn sure need to make sure that we throw the book at them for use of that particular drug. Even if our own brothers and sisters use it at a much higher rate then the people of color that we associate it with we need to put more people of color in jail for it. Convincing the country to disbelieve the statistics (even if they take the time to look for them) can be taken care of by the mainstream media by portraying all of the users of this drug as being people of color. It also can't be only drugs, we need to have wide sweeping profiling of people of color for any number of crimes, except White collar ones, after all we aren't going to let enough people of color rise through the ranks of business to need to worry about their committing White collar crimes in the first place.
Now that we have them in prison we need to keep them there. As long as we have group of people with the White publics best interest in mind we should be able to keep them locked up for the maximum time. We need to push for mandatory minimum sentences for any crimes that we stereotypically attribute to people of color committing more of. That will stop all of those bleeding heart liberal judges from giving them opportunities for change.We also need to make sure that we don't buy into the nonsense about rehabilitation. If we start rehabilitating people then we are gonna have a whole group of people with the skills necessary to get ahead and even the playing field. We can't have that, and we also need to make sure that prison is about punishment and not rehabilitation.
Power access- Now, if we are gonna stay in control we need to maintain control of all the power and access to resources. If we manage to keep most of those people locked up, and deny them a decent education we will be well on our way. The ones we need to worry about are the ones mentioned above who are determined to rise above everything that we have thrown at them. There are gonna be a handful of them who will so here is what we can do. Success can be allowed but we need to be careful where we allow it. We need to follow the time honored belief that black people make better athletes, and entertainers. Let them rise to positions of greatness in those fields, after all we need entertainment don't we? Sure some of them will make a lot of money, but they won't have any real power to make changes. If in school those same people want to try their hand at math, science, literature, and god forbid have an aptitude for it, we need to placate them for a bit and then send them off to the athletics coach. Their success can be trumpeted by all of us in the White community by pointing out that their are a lot of successful people of color. Just look at so and so, who plays for any given professional sports team, or was just in that new action movie. Which brings me to the movies that they may be in. We can't let too many of them get the good guy roles, we need to help fortify the notion of people of color as dangerous. They can have roles of good guys if that good guy carries a gun and kills people. If we let them get in roles of a sensitive, educated, caring individuals then we are doing a grave disservice to our cause.
Maintenance- All of this is going to take a lot of effort on our part. A group of people are not going to sit passively by and just accept servitude and oppression. We need to be constantly on guard and be ready for any situation that may arise. To do this is we need to continue to point out the few people from those communities that rose through the ranks to truly gain access to power. Any grumbling needs to be immediately met with shoving the exception to the rule right in their face. Oprah will be great for this. We can use Oprah as our shining example that people of color, and women are completely off base. After all, Oprah is not only black, but a woman to boot, so why are they complaining. Secondly, if a person of color should ever get elected to a position of real power like say President of the United States, he or she (yeah right) will be our prime example of how ridiculous all of the charges of our society being racist is. We as White people however need to make sure that we keep an eye on that person, and at the first sign of weakness, or slip up, that we pounce. Make sure we remind everyone that this is what happens when you put your faith in one of those people.
Now as to maintaining our own people. There are gonna be some our White brothers and sisters that are going to be sympathetic to the oppression of the communities of color. Those people are dangerous, and we need to remind all White people that they are crazy, liberal, or at even better a race traitor. And while we can't stop all of them, we need to keep the majority in line with our way of thinking or things are gonna get out of hand in a hurry. We also need to make sure we keep in place all of the negative stereotypes. If one person from the communities in question, commits a crime, or does anything that is even remotely out of line that we use that individual as the representation for the whole race.One bad apple spoils the whole damn bunch. right? If one of them should get angry (and they will, after all we are trying to keep them down) we need to use that anger to keep all of our White brothers and sisters scared. We can be sure that if enough White folks are scared that the odds are better in our favor of keeping them from forming any real relationship with those people. We can use the media once again in our favor by filling it with stories of black crimes, or crimes of any other person of color for that matter, and highlight the dangers that those people represent to us White law abiding citizens. We need to keep up the fight against immigration. If too many of those Mexicans get across the border we are gonna have them messing up the status quo. They will become citizens, and then they will start to vote. Eventually, they will figure out that they need to form a coalition with other communities of color in order to gain access to more power and then we are gonna be royally screwed.
In conclusion, we have had it too good for too long to let it go now. I am not talking about us really losing anything major, but the days of us holding all the cards are gonna be over. We will have to start competing on a level playing field. Our forefathers worked too hard to ensure that the playing field was skewed in our favor to let that go now. A level field of play will mean we will have to work harder and compete harder for resources. Competing with our own is one thing, but those other people, come on. Do they seriously expect us to give up on all the privilege that we have. Can you imagine the chaos that will ensue in our communities if the attention begins to swing toward our crimes, drug use, and over all treatment of others. It will be Armageddon.We will be required to be judged on the content of our character and not the color of our skin. We are going to have work harder on our children's education, because being White won't be enough to ensure that you will get preferential treatment. It won't do you any good to be a alumni somewhere, your kids are gonna have to work as hard as everyone else. Through our years of oppression we have created a group of people that our far more apt at survival then we are. They have taken everything that we have thrown at them and are still standing. If they ever get a truly equitable playing field the parties over. We must remain constantly vigilant in order to ensure our own survival.
Authors Note
This article was both painful and easy at the same time to write. Painful, because I see in it all of the ugliness that still exists, despite now President Elect Barrack Obama making history. Easy, because all I had to do was look at some of the irrelevant fears that some of my white brothers and sisters have. It was also easy, because all I had to do was look to modern day examples. For those of you that are offended by this article I say, good! You should be offended, because you ought to recognize in this article things you see every day. For those of you that think that my ideas are a ridiculous exaggeration I offer you these examples from my home state of Oregon. In the state of Oregon the dropout rate for African American is 75%. Oregon being the bastion of liberalism that it is leads the way in equal sentencing and arrest for drug offenses. That being said, as a black male you are still 4.1 times more likely to be arrested and sentenced for the exact same crime here as your white counterpart. Of course, as a black male I would avoid Minnesota where you are 46.1 times more likely to be arrested. Congratulations Minnesota, your number one.
The difficult part was capitalizing "white" and making sure that "black" or any other ethnic group was never capitalized. It was also distasteful to use the phrase "them," or "those people" so often. However, listen to conversations and see how often those same phrases are used to describe anyone who is not part of what is seen as the power majority in this country.
You can take the whole thing tongue in cheek if you wish, but I assure you that's not the point. You can continue to belive that anyone that buys into this is full blown liberal nut, or you can do something about it. You can get off your butt and make an effort to assure the points made in this article don't continue or never come to fruition where you are.
In the end, the fact of the matter is that it's all very simple. You are either part of the problem or you are part of the solution. There is no middle ground. You either get it, or you don't. You either continue to live your life in miserable denial, and continue to buy into all the worn out axioms of those who don't want equitability, or you don't. There is no grey area. Make no mistake, this is a war, and you are either on the side of good and just, or you aren't.There is no room for compromise when it comes to obtaining equitable conditions for everyone in our country. It's well past time for all of us to open our eyes and see the light. It is my hope that a lot of my white brothers and sisters who voted for Barrack and his message of hope and change either get it, or are starting to. We'll see. The fight is a long way from over, and I, like a lot of other Americans, are in it for the long haul. Maybe President Obama's election is a start to the new civil rights movement. I wasn't born during the first part of the movement, but I am seeing positive things, and hold out hope for more. Later.
If racism isn't a real issue in America anymore, I thought about what a racist society would look like. What kinds of things would be required in order for the White people in our country to get back all of the power that they seem to believe they have lost as a result of affirmative action, and people espousing equal rights for all. So without further adieu here is my own plan for a racist society.
You need to be sneaky about how you do it. Out and out slavery won't work, and most White folks now days don't have the stomachs for lynchings, so you have to be clever. In any of the below examples you need to make sure that you have one or two examples that stand out as the exception to the rule. That way you can point them out and tell all the nay-sayers that they are over reacting. In no certain order here are some great starting points.
Education- First off you have to make education as inequitable as possible. After all if you want people held down, education or lack there of is a powerful first step. You need to ensure that the vast majority of the population you are trying to oppress can't attain the same academic standards that you have access to. A 75% drop out rate would be optimal, that way you can still have a token group that you can point to as successful. The 25% who do graduate will need to be tracked into middle management jobs, so as to further the White male power structure, but more on that later.
Seventy five percent sounds like an almost unobtainable goal. I mean that is, in reality, educational genocide, no one is gonna put up with that. Again, this is why you have to be sneaky. You really have to be careful about how you present education. In order to get the young people of color to go along with this you need to package education as a waste of time, or better yet as a "White thing." Not being seen as cool if you are White will be OK as long as we keep in mind that the end justifies the means. After all people of color are gonna see this whole thing coming a mile away, but if we keep them down and don't allow then equal access to a forum in which to air their grievances we should be alright.
So, if we can use the mainstream media as a tool to show that education is a White thing, and conversely the only way to be educated is to "act white" then we already have half our work done for us. Reading definitely has to be a White thing. Most of our literature has to be written by White authors aimed at a White audience, so even if we do get a few people of color that decide to better themselves through reading, it won't matter much because most of the info won't be targeted toward them anyway. That should add an extra obstacle in their way. That won't be enough though, their are still going to be some young people of color who insist on trying to play on a level field. That's when we hit em with peer pressure. Using the same media that portrayed education as a White thing now needs to be used to relay the message that it is "cool" to be uneducated if you are a person of color.
We can pay young musicians of color vast sums of money to help spread the image of a person of color as a thug, rebellious, and anti establishment. Have those same artist dress and act out the lifestyle that is defiantly anti white. After all, the real money is going to be made by the White executives who own the record companies so it's OK if a few of those same musicians get at least a little wealthy in the process. We need to make sure that they glamorize violence, misogyny, and a host of other things that aren't stereotypically "White." With all of that in place; the images, the ideologies, and a constant barrage by mainstream media that everything is OK we should be able to hit that magic mark.
Freedom- It's gonna be awfully hard for a group of people to rise above their current situation if we keep a good number of them under lock and key. Now this isn't slavery, this is protecting the public interest, and since we are building a racist society, we want that interest to be the "White" interest. So how do we do this? As stated above, people of color aren't stupid, we are making a big mistake if we believe that. Oh sure, outwardly we can treat them like their not as bright as we are, but behind the scenes we need to know that we are dealing with a crafty group of people who have survived the worst we could throw at them, and still manage to thrive, if not flourish in some cases. Step one is to keep our own interest in mind. Sentencing has to be in favor of White people, even when the crime is the same, we need to make sure that we keep the vast element of our White brothers and sisters out of the prison industrial complex. Oh sure, we need to put a few of the bad apples that are an embarrassment to us in there, but for the most part it really needs to be people of color if this is going to work. One way is to put sentencing laws in place that lean in the favor of White folks. If a certain drug is seen as a drug used more frequently by communities of color then we damn sure need to make sure that we throw the book at them for use of that particular drug. Even if our own brothers and sisters use it at a much higher rate then the people of color that we associate it with we need to put more people of color in jail for it. Convincing the country to disbelieve the statistics (even if they take the time to look for them) can be taken care of by the mainstream media by portraying all of the users of this drug as being people of color. It also can't be only drugs, we need to have wide sweeping profiling of people of color for any number of crimes, except White collar ones, after all we aren't going to let enough people of color rise through the ranks of business to need to worry about their committing White collar crimes in the first place.
Now that we have them in prison we need to keep them there. As long as we have group of people with the White publics best interest in mind we should be able to keep them locked up for the maximum time. We need to push for mandatory minimum sentences for any crimes that we stereotypically attribute to people of color committing more of. That will stop all of those bleeding heart liberal judges from giving them opportunities for change.We also need to make sure that we don't buy into the nonsense about rehabilitation. If we start rehabilitating people then we are gonna have a whole group of people with the skills necessary to get ahead and even the playing field. We can't have that, and we also need to make sure that prison is about punishment and not rehabilitation.
Power access- Now, if we are gonna stay in control we need to maintain control of all the power and access to resources. If we manage to keep most of those people locked up, and deny them a decent education we will be well on our way. The ones we need to worry about are the ones mentioned above who are determined to rise above everything that we have thrown at them. There are gonna be a handful of them who will so here is what we can do. Success can be allowed but we need to be careful where we allow it. We need to follow the time honored belief that black people make better athletes, and entertainers. Let them rise to positions of greatness in those fields, after all we need entertainment don't we? Sure some of them will make a lot of money, but they won't have any real power to make changes. If in school those same people want to try their hand at math, science, literature, and god forbid have an aptitude for it, we need to placate them for a bit and then send them off to the athletics coach. Their success can be trumpeted by all of us in the White community by pointing out that their are a lot of successful people of color. Just look at so and so, who plays for any given professional sports team, or was just in that new action movie. Which brings me to the movies that they may be in. We can't let too many of them get the good guy roles, we need to help fortify the notion of people of color as dangerous. They can have roles of good guys if that good guy carries a gun and kills people. If we let them get in roles of a sensitive, educated, caring individuals then we are doing a grave disservice to our cause.
Maintenance- All of this is going to take a lot of effort on our part. A group of people are not going to sit passively by and just accept servitude and oppression. We need to be constantly on guard and be ready for any situation that may arise. To do this is we need to continue to point out the few people from those communities that rose through the ranks to truly gain access to power. Any grumbling needs to be immediately met with shoving the exception to the rule right in their face. Oprah will be great for this. We can use Oprah as our shining example that people of color, and women are completely off base. After all, Oprah is not only black, but a woman to boot, so why are they complaining. Secondly, if a person of color should ever get elected to a position of real power like say President of the United States, he or she (yeah right) will be our prime example of how ridiculous all of the charges of our society being racist is. We as White people however need to make sure that we keep an eye on that person, and at the first sign of weakness, or slip up, that we pounce. Make sure we remind everyone that this is what happens when you put your faith in one of those people.
Now as to maintaining our own people. There are gonna be some our White brothers and sisters that are going to be sympathetic to the oppression of the communities of color. Those people are dangerous, and we need to remind all White people that they are crazy, liberal, or at even better a race traitor. And while we can't stop all of them, we need to keep the majority in line with our way of thinking or things are gonna get out of hand in a hurry. We also need to make sure we keep in place all of the negative stereotypes. If one person from the communities in question, commits a crime, or does anything that is even remotely out of line that we use that individual as the representation for the whole race.One bad apple spoils the whole damn bunch. right? If one of them should get angry (and they will, after all we are trying to keep them down) we need to use that anger to keep all of our White brothers and sisters scared. We can be sure that if enough White folks are scared that the odds are better in our favor of keeping them from forming any real relationship with those people. We can use the media once again in our favor by filling it with stories of black crimes, or crimes of any other person of color for that matter, and highlight the dangers that those people represent to us White law abiding citizens. We need to keep up the fight against immigration. If too many of those Mexicans get across the border we are gonna have them messing up the status quo. They will become citizens, and then they will start to vote. Eventually, they will figure out that they need to form a coalition with other communities of color in order to gain access to more power and then we are gonna be royally screwed.
In conclusion, we have had it too good for too long to let it go now. I am not talking about us really losing anything major, but the days of us holding all the cards are gonna be over. We will have to start competing on a level playing field. Our forefathers worked too hard to ensure that the playing field was skewed in our favor to let that go now. A level field of play will mean we will have to work harder and compete harder for resources. Competing with our own is one thing, but those other people, come on. Do they seriously expect us to give up on all the privilege that we have. Can you imagine the chaos that will ensue in our communities if the attention begins to swing toward our crimes, drug use, and over all treatment of others. It will be Armageddon.We will be required to be judged on the content of our character and not the color of our skin. We are going to have work harder on our children's education, because being White won't be enough to ensure that you will get preferential treatment. It won't do you any good to be a alumni somewhere, your kids are gonna have to work as hard as everyone else. Through our years of oppression we have created a group of people that our far more apt at survival then we are. They have taken everything that we have thrown at them and are still standing. If they ever get a truly equitable playing field the parties over. We must remain constantly vigilant in order to ensure our own survival.
Authors Note
This article was both painful and easy at the same time to write. Painful, because I see in it all of the ugliness that still exists, despite now President Elect Barrack Obama making history. Easy, because all I had to do was look at some of the irrelevant fears that some of my white brothers and sisters have. It was also easy, because all I had to do was look to modern day examples. For those of you that are offended by this article I say, good! You should be offended, because you ought to recognize in this article things you see every day. For those of you that think that my ideas are a ridiculous exaggeration I offer you these examples from my home state of Oregon. In the state of Oregon the dropout rate for African American is 75%. Oregon being the bastion of liberalism that it is leads the way in equal sentencing and arrest for drug offenses. That being said, as a black male you are still 4.1 times more likely to be arrested and sentenced for the exact same crime here as your white counterpart. Of course, as a black male I would avoid Minnesota where you are 46.1 times more likely to be arrested. Congratulations Minnesota, your number one.
The difficult part was capitalizing "white" and making sure that "black" or any other ethnic group was never capitalized. It was also distasteful to use the phrase "them," or "those people" so often. However, listen to conversations and see how often those same phrases are used to describe anyone who is not part of what is seen as the power majority in this country.
You can take the whole thing tongue in cheek if you wish, but I assure you that's not the point. You can continue to belive that anyone that buys into this is full blown liberal nut, or you can do something about it. You can get off your butt and make an effort to assure the points made in this article don't continue or never come to fruition where you are.
In the end, the fact of the matter is that it's all very simple. You are either part of the problem or you are part of the solution. There is no middle ground. You either get it, or you don't. You either continue to live your life in miserable denial, and continue to buy into all the worn out axioms of those who don't want equitability, or you don't. There is no grey area. Make no mistake, this is a war, and you are either on the side of good and just, or you aren't.There is no room for compromise when it comes to obtaining equitable conditions for everyone in our country. It's well past time for all of us to open our eyes and see the light. It is my hope that a lot of my white brothers and sisters who voted for Barrack and his message of hope and change either get it, or are starting to. We'll see. The fight is a long way from over, and I, like a lot of other Americans, are in it for the long haul. Maybe President Obama's election is a start to the new civil rights movement. I wasn't born during the first part of the movement, but I am seeing positive things, and hold out hope for more. Later.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Now What?
Now What?
Last night was a huge step in American history, no doubt about it. How big of a step remains to be seen. Last night many of my white brothers and sisters took the historic step of supporting to victory the first president of the United States who identifies as African American. The reasons for their decision will be bandied about by pundits in the weeks to come. As I watched the news last night though, I heard within moments of Presidents Obama's victory the words I knew were coming, but was hoping weren't. News people, mostly from the right, and even John McCain himself made the statement, in not these exact words, that the question of racism needed to be put to rest.
The question now is not whether racism in America exist, it does. It's not whether or not the community of color has the exact same opportunity as their White counterparts, they don't. The question isn't whether or not President Obama some how now owes the White community a debt of gratitude, he doesn't. The question is; now what? Are we going to follow the time honored tradition of short term memory that has plagued us for centuries. Are we going to slip back into our denial and personalize everything with the ever famous, "I'm not racist, because...." The newest will be, "I voted for Barrack Obama, so I'm not a racist." On the first opportunity we get, when President Obama slips up (and he will), will we say to ourselves that it's the last time we vote for a candidate of color, because our short term memory will not allow us to remember one of the worst eight years in American history in which we had a President that may be tried with war crimes, and an economy that is the worst it's been in decades. Or are we going to remember all of the reasons that we voted for Obama in the first place. The faith that he represents something better and bigger then all of our own petty concerns.
Last night vindicated my hope in my white brothers and sisters a little. OK, a lot. The overwhelming numbers by which President Obama won were staggering. A message was definitely sent to the Republican party that people are sick to death of them. More then that, for the first time in history White America said that they were willing to elevate a black man to the most powerful position in the land. I would ask my White brothers and sisters as they read this to remember the warning that President Obama gave us in the waning days of his campaign. Don't get cocky. This is big, but the work has just started back up. The work that a lot of us were doing already, I hope will be joined by millions of other White Americans. If we want people of color, poor people, disabled persons, and the lesbian, gay, bi, and transgendered community to be able to look at their children and tell them with a straight face that they can be whatever they want to be we have a long way to go.
Barrack needs to be shining example of what is possible. What Barrack does not need to become is a footnote in history or the example that we pull out (like Oprah) every time we get tired of listening to people of color point out that the oppression in their communities makes succeeding difficult. We need to stop and realize the reason that this moment in history is so huge is that it's because it's a first. We as white people need to realize that while Barracks story is amazing, that he hardly represents the average success story for people of color in this country. No, racism is still alive and well. When a person of color, a woman, a person in the lesbian, gay, bi and transgendered community can be in a position of power without them being a credit to their race, gender, or sexual orientation then we will be on the right track. When all the groups mentioned above finally have access to the resources and power that white people have, without having to be or act like somebody that they are not (i.e white, male, heterosexual, and able bodied), or without all the extra obstacles that white people don't have to overcome then we will be at a place that we can be proud of.
So I encourage all of you reading this to rejoice and celebrate in our historic victory. This was a victory for all of us. White, Black, Asian, Native American, Latino/Latina, people from all different communities, genders, backgrounds, abilities, and sexual orientations can know, that no matter the outcome, that what we did was say that we were willing to change. Now that we have made another huge step in the quest for an equitable society now is not the time sit back and say that we have done all we can. Now is the time to continue on the path toward healing, and to ask ourselves, now what?
Last night was a huge step in American history, no doubt about it. How big of a step remains to be seen. Last night many of my white brothers and sisters took the historic step of supporting to victory the first president of the United States who identifies as African American. The reasons for their decision will be bandied about by pundits in the weeks to come. As I watched the news last night though, I heard within moments of Presidents Obama's victory the words I knew were coming, but was hoping weren't. News people, mostly from the right, and even John McCain himself made the statement, in not these exact words, that the question of racism needed to be put to rest.
The question now is not whether racism in America exist, it does. It's not whether or not the community of color has the exact same opportunity as their White counterparts, they don't. The question isn't whether or not President Obama some how now owes the White community a debt of gratitude, he doesn't. The question is; now what? Are we going to follow the time honored tradition of short term memory that has plagued us for centuries. Are we going to slip back into our denial and personalize everything with the ever famous, "I'm not racist, because...." The newest will be, "I voted for Barrack Obama, so I'm not a racist." On the first opportunity we get, when President Obama slips up (and he will), will we say to ourselves that it's the last time we vote for a candidate of color, because our short term memory will not allow us to remember one of the worst eight years in American history in which we had a President that may be tried with war crimes, and an economy that is the worst it's been in decades. Or are we going to remember all of the reasons that we voted for Obama in the first place. The faith that he represents something better and bigger then all of our own petty concerns.
Last night vindicated my hope in my white brothers and sisters a little. OK, a lot. The overwhelming numbers by which President Obama won were staggering. A message was definitely sent to the Republican party that people are sick to death of them. More then that, for the first time in history White America said that they were willing to elevate a black man to the most powerful position in the land. I would ask my White brothers and sisters as they read this to remember the warning that President Obama gave us in the waning days of his campaign. Don't get cocky. This is big, but the work has just started back up. The work that a lot of us were doing already, I hope will be joined by millions of other White Americans. If we want people of color, poor people, disabled persons, and the lesbian, gay, bi, and transgendered community to be able to look at their children and tell them with a straight face that they can be whatever they want to be we have a long way to go.
Barrack needs to be shining example of what is possible. What Barrack does not need to become is a footnote in history or the example that we pull out (like Oprah) every time we get tired of listening to people of color point out that the oppression in their communities makes succeeding difficult. We need to stop and realize the reason that this moment in history is so huge is that it's because it's a first. We as white people need to realize that while Barracks story is amazing, that he hardly represents the average success story for people of color in this country. No, racism is still alive and well. When a person of color, a woman, a person in the lesbian, gay, bi and transgendered community can be in a position of power without them being a credit to their race, gender, or sexual orientation then we will be on the right track. When all the groups mentioned above finally have access to the resources and power that white people have, without having to be or act like somebody that they are not (i.e white, male, heterosexual, and able bodied), or without all the extra obstacles that white people don't have to overcome then we will be at a place that we can be proud of.
So I encourage all of you reading this to rejoice and celebrate in our historic victory. This was a victory for all of us. White, Black, Asian, Native American, Latino/Latina, people from all different communities, genders, backgrounds, abilities, and sexual orientations can know, that no matter the outcome, that what we did was say that we were willing to change. Now that we have made another huge step in the quest for an equitable society now is not the time sit back and say that we have done all we can. Now is the time to continue on the path toward healing, and to ask ourselves, now what?
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