It was bound to happen. No matter how far many of us would like to believe we've come, the reality is that racism is alive and well in America.
Over the last 4 decades since days of Dr. King's Civil Rights marches, it has seemed that much progress has been made. Early on in the campaign I was proud to notice that not much had been said about Barack Obama's obvious dark completion. That lack of focus ended quickly in the days leading up to February's Super Tuesday voting.
The Washington Post has published an article detailing the sort of racism Obama campaign volunteers have experienced first hand (Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause). In reaching out to voters they've been threatened, called names and even received death threats.
Days ago Hillary Clinton pointed out in an interview that white people won't vote for Obama. As Ruben Navarrette pointed out on CNN.com, Hillary seemed to be saying "Vote for me. I'm white. I can win because other whites will vote for me."
In recent days I've heard my first racial Obama joke. Just today, two separate but telling stories hit the newswire:
Georgia bar's T-shirt links Obama, Curious George (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
The publisher of the popular children book's series "Curious George" is considering legal action against a Georgia bar owner for selling T-shirts that link Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to the inquisitive monkey.
Racism in the Presidential Race (US News & World Report)
Terry McAuliffe, Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, was all over the cable news channels last night claiming Clinton's 2-to-1 win in West Virginia is proof that she and only she can win the White House for the Democratic Party in November—because of her support from white, working-class voters.
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6 comments:
Give me a break, you are perpetuating racism with your 3rd grade level comments. Grow up, be part of the solution, not the problem. Join your community, get involved, discover that racism is fueled by those who hide behind old beliefs and hatreds; love one another, go out and actually talk to someone of another race, belief or religion. We're all alike. Just afraid of each other.
I agree with most of what you said - but I was shooting for 4th grade level.
Good post, Blackjack. The majority of America needs 3rd-grade-level comments, or it flies right over their heads. I think a lot of people view racism as something that was defeated in the 1960s and that once its defeated we can move on to another battle. But racism -- basically finding a the biggest most obvious difference between yourself and another person and using it as an excuse to feel and act superior -- it's just built into the human condition, like hunger and sleep. You don't defeat hunger one day and then stop worrying about getting food the rest of your life. Likewise, we won't defeat racism one day and then be able to forget about it without it returning. So, it's important to keep an eye on, and to keep it at bay...assuming we want a racist-free society to call home, which some people, as you've shown, clearly don't at this moment in time.
Racism will never be defeated, but that doesn't mean that we stop fighting it.
Don is right, we're all alike, but the way humans are, the differences that we see will always cause friction be it race, gender, or social status. It is up to society to rise above that base line human thought as much as it can to eliminate some of the problems that go along with those thoughts.
Blackjack - I thought you hit the 4th Grade Level. Now if political party operative would get educated to that level...
Hey all.
First, my apologies. I guess we do need to talk to others at their level. I was a bit cynical. But good to hear the comments, and thanks for not thrashing me, (I was expecting that-you let me have it tactfully). Thanks for opening my mind to a different level of thinking.
Joe - Right on about how and why racism works. It's always the basic instinct of us against them - tribalism actually. The goal of civilization is to overcome our base insticts and be more human.
Brent - I think our best hope is to get the politicos to start acting like pre-schoolers and we'll go from there.
Don - No problem. We're not about flaming people here. Blogs are sort of anonymous and comments from all sides are expected. We just hope to keep a civil dialogue going and maybe we can get beyond complete polarization. A lot of our commentary is obviously very liberal but we're not beyond thinking we can learn something (Heck, Brent even writes for a conservative blog as their token liberal - http://lakeminnetonkaliberty.blogspot.com/). Thanks for visiting and interacting!
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