I have been watching the poll numbers lately as the controversy over race has, finally and inevitably, entered the Presidential primary race. So the pastor at the Chicago church where Obama worshiped shouted out some things that offend conservative white Americans.
Tell me again exactly why I should care about that?
I have spent a lifetime among white people who felt quite comfortable calling young black men "bucks" and single black mothers "welfare cheats."
I was an activist, and my only arrest came at a demonstration on behalf of the latter group, when I was a college student in Ann Arbor in 1969.
More times than I can remember, white friends and relatives have referred to "niggers" or warned me (during the civil rights movement) that "Communists" were behind the effort by African-Americans to attain a decent measure of equality in this sorry society. I shuddered every time somebody I cared about uttered these hateful and ignorant words.
One of my first memories is my cousins telling me that they had touched the hair of a black boy in Royal Oak and that he "felt different" and "smelled different." The very first black boy I met was named Perkins, and as much as I hate to admit it, he did seem to smell different to me.
I never touched his hair, but it was pretty obvious even to a clueless white boy that the texture of his tightly curly hair differed a great deal from mine.
Not so many years later, during my first years traveling through the south, I saw water fountains, restaurant entrances, and other public places marked for "whites only" and for "colored only."
I visited communities where the schools were segregated, the churches were segregated, and every single neighborhood in town was segregated. In the black end of town, in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana, I saw shacks on dirt roads where the black folks lived.
This is not sometime lost in history. This is the late Sixties.
Excuse me, but there are still many older folks, like the preacher in Chicago that Obama listened to, who lived through these indignities. If they use language that whites find offensive, maybe it is time for these white Christians to live in the shoes worn by another person, as their religion dictates, if even for a day.
Do this, and your complaints with the newly notorious Rev. Wright will evaporate with the sweet love of compassion, replacing the dark hatred of prejudice.
None of this, BTW, should be misinterpreted as a criticism of Hillary Clinton, who today chose to attack Obama about the comments his pastor made, apparently in the belief that this might save her failing bid to win the Democratic nomination. I am not unsympathetic to Hillary. Everything written here could easily be rewritten to highlight the unfairnesses applied to her effort to become the first woman President.
Americans seem to expect women to step aside, and put their own hopes and desires on hold in favor of their husbands, boyfriends, graduate advisers, bosses -- or some other man who thinks his career matters more than hers.
I do not advocate this. I do not think Hillary should quit the race because a woman should concede a close race before it is over in favor of a man. I would never do that.
Nope. I think she should prepare herself to be the VP on the ticket Obama will lead to victory in November.
That, my friends, is the bottom line of this political cycle. We have a candidate who can win it all, and that is all that matters, in these troubled times.
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1 comment:
Sorry society? What a sorry description for a society which has come further along the path of diversity than any other, ever, bar none. And, by the way, the sixties, while not “lost in history”, were certainly a long time ago (perhaps you forget that you and I are getting pretty old).
Setting in motion an ideal which said all men are created equal, and that equality is bestowed by a source above men, began an irrepressible change on this planet. As a nation our conscience drove us to horrible violence because that uniquely American ideal (yep, we proudly claim original authorship) was irrefutable. We threw off the stench that was slavery. Nonsensical fears continued, but so did the law of the land.
In spite of all the hate and hateful things, progress continues even today. Certainly it has over the past 40 years. Condemning society for the acts of individuals will not help. Hate speech of Rev. Wright's ilk will not help. Let us not forget, by the way, that he preached these things for decades. He is not recently notorious, only recently noted.
The enormous power of such leaders as the Tuskegee Airmen and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, was engendered in their anti-hate determination. They did, in turn, act out the equivalence of David and Golieth. Facing down terribly powerful and dangerous people who were filled with hate born of petty fears, they staked what they had and who they were upon the notion so eloquently written by the founders of this country. The invocation of hate is both easy and cowardly; it is the engine of violence, not progress. Future progress will take more generations and more courage.
You may lament that the progress our young nation has experienced has taken so long. In part, the agonizingly difficult and bitter struggle has been exacerbated by the Wrights of the world (who come in all colors). His role of a teacher of hate in the robes of a church cannot be excused. I doubt that he will be much concerned as he enjoys the several millions of dollars he has reaped in so doing.
Barak Obama has had great difficulty mitigating damage to his campaign over this issue. His explanations thus far fall well short of credible. But that is another issue.
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