Some Thoughts

In an article in the LA Times, which is a far more liberal newspaper than any of the other national newspapers, including the Washington Post, NY Times, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times, I read an article about race, white voters and Obama.

I thought this one quote, by a 47 year old man whose ancestors were slave owners, was really on point. Bear in mind that while this was in the context of voting, it is generally relevant to Euro-Americans and their approach and reluctance to discuss racism.

He says: "For me, the Obama thing is a giant step forward for America," he said. The 47-year-old's ancestors once lorded over black slaves as owners of one of the Old South's largest plantation empires. Electing a black candidate, he said, would show that "we're not just the slavery nation, the Jim Crow nation." He then later observes, that Obama, if elected, would quell overseas critics who accuse the United States of racism. If critics like Steele called that "white guilt," he said, then so be it.

Guilt, he said, "has a place and a role. Those who fail to feel guilt are sociopaths."

It is good to see this kind of article in a national newspaper that can also be accessed online. Though whether people will read this, and whether more importantly it will spark the kind of critical self-examination needed, is another question.

Too long, those of color have been forced to dance around the "politically correct" position of not raising the issue of racism, or indeed even mentioning the word, around Euro-Americans. Too long. It is as if we must acknowledge that, "Hey, if I feel guilt, isn't that enough?"

No, it isn't. Changes must be wrought, not simply in individual minds, but collectively. So that the Neo-Nazis who hatched a plan to assassinate Obama are not merely brushed under the media rug. This is not a mere blip on the screen of information. This is a postule that reveals a much deeper, systemic rot underneath: the systemic, institutionalized racism that is symbolized by Palin's followers. Immoral. Radical. And yet, knowing that they are referencing hundreds of years of domestic terrorism, otherwise referred to as racism, that they are buoyed still by institutions that inadequately address Neo-Nazism, racism, and "hate-based" crimes. Because today, these crimes are treated as individual acts, rather than collective acts that reference history. And becuase of that referencing, have a greater deleterious and pernicious effect on the psyche of its victims: people of color.