---The night Barack Obama won the election a young Black Muslim man, Liberian, was attached in Staten Island by a bunch of young white men who jumped out their ride with baseball bats.
---A few days ago a white army pvt. attacked a black college student in the heat of an argument about Obama.
---Across the nation news agencies have reported a rise in white supremist and racist vandalism
---The Secret Service is investigating death threats against a President at a record level since Obama's election.
An AM New York story provides the following quotes which sum up what i'm getting at pretty well:
"The work of reconciliation doesn't come from having historical amnesia." -L'Heureux Lewis, Asst. Professor of Sociology and black studies at City College.
"This country's history of discrimination can't be overturned or reversed through one political event, but through a series of small steps over the course of many generations" -Ilya Leybovich, Prospect Heights
"The hope expressed by some that with Obama's election, America entered a 'post-racial' period is probably naive." -Margaret Fung, Executive Director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
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Some will read this and say i am being unfair, that i am somehow shitting on Obama's accomplishment or not giving due credit to the 'American Dream'. So as i do with all of my arguments, allow me to take this time to acknowedge those things. I have been clear in past postings about Obama '09, that what he has done is extraordinary. That he has probably worked harder and under more stress than any President in HISTORY when you consider that his movement was largelly grass-roots, from the ground up, getting out the vote of people whom have never voted in their lives; not an easy thing to do. Did it all being Black amongst hundreds of politicians whom not only look different, but in large number probably were raised amongst family and friends whom preached intolerance about race. Shit... i swear his hair has gotten gray over the past year!
It DOES prove that young Black men and women can grow up to be whatever they want -if they gather as many chips as they can manage, and *play the game right-
___But dont get it twisted; Black people have KNOWN THIS all along! They KNEW they were capeable... Till now however, they havn't known whether they were ABLE! Didn't know if the system of gatekeepers sustaining this country's institutions would lift enough gates to let one of their own through to the top!I put it in these terms because there are still PLENTY of paternalistic/ racist ass folks who are looking at this like as if though Blacks have finally bred someone with enough brain power for the job; which of course is utter ignorant dumb-assed.ness! (by the way.. fuck with the switch if these people are you because your power has been off for a long time.)
On the flip-side, when you consider that indeed there are ALOT of people (expressing this attitude) still lacking confidence in Black people whom aren't Obama (and these are mostly liberals whom express it this way); that there are still ALOT of people whom would hold anomosity against brothers for Obama's win , or go out and hurt others with beatings and posting humiliating public statments into the wind and onto walls (probably 'conservatives').. it becomes apparent that the whole notion that we are behind race is whishful thinking.('Come on dude, it aint about race anymore.. we have a black president' takes 'How could i be racist? I have black friends' to a WHOLLLEEE NEW LEVEL ! )
What is dangerous about a time like this is that it becomes HiGh TiMe for self proclaimed guardians of patriotism (and alot of these same so called ALL-American folks talk about race not being an issue while hipocritically throwing the N word around with friends), to come out and spread mis-information and loaded rhetoric aimed at suppressing the issue of race once and for all. ___A perfect example is how under the same AM NewYork article i quoted from above, a list of 'racial epithets' was listed to give meaning and supposed historical significance to each. And within that very listing you understand what i'm talking about by LOADED when you read between the lines.
For "MUTT" they have: Used for people of mixed ethnic backround. President Elect Barack Obama used it as a joking self reference, but others find it offensive. When i read that definition it struck the tone you hear when folks try justifying their use of the N word by saying "Well, they use it themselves!" ...did you read it again? go on now, i'll give you a second... ok so now you read it, am i right or am i right? They couldn't just give the damn definition, they HAD to first somehow de-base its offensiveness.
Then for "CRACKER" the paper takes an angle which aims to victimize whites by the use of the word. No doubt it is distasteful, amateurish, non-progressive to just call folks crackers.. we all have family, sometimes white, and at times family is good to us. But im not targeting the issue of whether the word is right or wrong to use. I am shedding light on the truth being the paper totally misinforms the public on the origins of the word; stating This slur against whites historically means a poor white person. In the same light i want to have you ask yourself in what way is it offensive (in comparison to Nigger) when it simply implies that someone is poor? goes to show you that to verbally attack the ruling race class is to say they in fact don't have the power they have the priveledge to be afforded, as if though that should send a gasp out their mouths and a hand to their chest "HUHHHH!" lol ...Actually though that is the reporter shooting him/herself in the foot DESPITE the fact they didn't define the slur correctly. In all actuallity the historical origin of CRACKER dates back the slavery in the U.S. It was the term Black Slaves began using for The Man; associating HIM ..with his whip! They couldn't call him a bitch or a shit head, they called him the cracker. If anything, at the time, that term was the opposite of degrading.. it in fact reaffirmed the slave masters power over them!
Examples such as these, as i've stated, is how this time is actually more dangerous for race relations. We are in a time where the Black Brain is more suseptable to being 'washed' than at any time in history. If you are a 13 year old boy from the slums and you've gone through 3 home room teachers in one year, mornings in school on an empty stomach and unfocused mind, stress from conditions at home and in your neighborhood and likely a broken family, you are now EXPECTED to overachieve.. whereas in the past your success was wished for. we can forget about philanthropy and government funds to go towards investment in bettering local schools, hospitals and infrastructure (which is important because when your surroundings are the slum your mind becomes the slum, and all the conotations of the slum promoted in the media carry with you).. he can forget about this investment.. he must now make it in spite of these conditions, and if he fails.... well then that to many will prove true the theory that he is inferior!
Al Quida's P2oG division (copy and paste "P2oG" into google) puts out a statement quoting Malcom X, and an MSNBC analyst alludes to Al Quida quoting "60's divisive figures". ...All of a sudden Barack Obama gets elected and now Malcom X is beginning to be paint brushed into the icon of bad blacks? I mean in his time they tried doing that to him by contrasting him with Martin Luther King (while J Edger Hoover was using the FBI to spy on King; goes to show you whom was actually divisive and wikid *google "COINTELPRO"). This is indication that the campaign to tear this man down for inspiring Blacks to stick up for themselves in a time when they were accustomed to walking the streets with their eyes down and lack of self esteem in their posture , is NOT OVER. Clearly we are seeing a white washing of race in America or we are damn near close to it, and YES i am talking about an OVERT movement to totally erase the past while ignoring the implications such attacks as the ones i listed in the beginning of this post signify. Shame about it is that with the election of Obama self hating/ ashamed blacks will no doubt incorporate themselves in this movement to suppress the truth as well.
This is depressing to me, because all it does is show our lack of true initiative to address failure in this country. Because in this country we don't admit to failure or being wrong. We haven't admitted it in the very formation of this nation through genocide, dont do it in our wars, we dont do it with the fact that we have higher crime statistics than other industrial countries, we dont do it when talking about equality! We have our heads so far up our ass about these so called ideals we stand on, and are quick to respond to such truths as (we were NOT one of the first countries to end slavery in the 19th century -most of Europe and South America had already been freeing slaves-; And we WOULD NOT be one of the first countries to elect a female -there have been middle eastern coutries with higher female officials... how shameful is that?-or even a Black man to President), we respond with Well, we're not perfect but we are better than the rest!, when we in fact SHOULLLD not give a fuck about what they do in the rest of the world and worry about moving us forward here! As the woman i quoted above stated: It will take small steps, and it will take work on all ends.
First off the problems must be acknowledged! That doesn't mean passing a bill that says 'we apologize for slavery'.. but by acknowledging it in the American consicousness by putting it in school books. By the 5th grade students should know about the stone wall rebellion and gay rights, and should be discussing the progress and lack of progress we've made on this issue. They should already know, not only that Blacks were slaves but about the movement to abolish slavery with Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, The Maroons, the Black/White Union revolts against big business in which workers united across racial barriers for rights, and should be discussing oppression in institutions and internalized oppression.. should be discussing the effects of Willie Lynch's philosophy of divide and conquer on the black family.
Problem is too many people profit off of us being mis-informed. So they would rather put fluffy reality shows on TV and keep documentaries old and boring than pay young minds in acting, music, prodiction, film to make new ones that will actually get the youth to listen. Every generation is getting more and more apolitical. It is becoming increasingly popular to project ignorance.. its supposed to be funny, and 'free'.
Meanwhile a young Black Female in one of my workshops proclaimes after the election: "Now we got our 40 acres and a mule", and young Black Male in another one of my workshops expressed his gratitude for the Europeans whom colonized and pillaged Africa for 'saving' Africans from their savage existance (never a moment realizing how savage it was that these very people stacked his ancestors laying down in the bottom of a ship for months, over which time they had to eat eachother to survive and dwell in their own shit and piss before arriving on these American shores)
It is a slave mind.
Hopefully Barack keeps Malcom by the window somewhere in his own! Because while we try to force history to swallow the blue pill, he is bringing the struggle up with him.
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