Thank you Karlton for your contribution.
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On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:54 AM, Manis, Andrew
Here is a commentary responding to these phenomena which
I have sent to Charles Richardson at the Telegraph.
I hope he will see it into print:
When Are WE Going to Get Over It?
For much of the last forty years, ever since America
"fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts,
we white people have been impatient with African Americans
who continued to blame race for their difficulties.
Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans
finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask
"When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous
obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs 'Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes"
should frighten and infuriate every one of us.
Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s,
I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what
many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and
Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to
do more than "talk the talk." Since our recent presidential election,
to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible
talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited
colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent.
Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years.
Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress
blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right.
Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that
anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon,
Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes.
Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps.
But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when
someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was
non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress
Jody Foster.
But elect a liberal who happens to be black and we're back
in the sixties again. At this point in our history,
we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are
always saying-that in America anything is possible,
EVEN electing a black man as president.
But instead we now hear that schoolchildren from Maine to
California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."
Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?"
How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation,
much less the whole world, look like us?
How long until we white people can-once and for all-get over
this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color?
How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction
that white skin makes us superior?
How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments
about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?
How long before we get over our expectations that we should be
at the head of the line merely because of our white skin?
How long until we white people end our silence and call out our
peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of
our white-only conversations?
I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people
start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as
we do flag burners?
How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks
exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate
themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard
enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten
to assassinate them when they do?
How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds,
both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal
and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in
God's sight?
Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever
elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't be lieve
I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism
problem. But here's my three-point plan:
First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black
Slaves Built I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will
protect him and his family from us white people.
Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying,
in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about
President Obama.
Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise
the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth"
sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."
Andrew Manis is author of Macon Black and White and serves on the
steering committee of Macon's Center for Racial Understanding.
