Today we should all be celebrating the Inauguration of our first African American President. Agree with him or not it is a historic moment for which this country should rightly be proud.
His supporters also have every right to be happy and celebratory today for their victory. However, there is a loud and bullying minority of them that threaten to mar the whole thing. Who see this not as a historic moment, but as an empowering one, and that not in a good way.
The Community Organizer Who Would Be King has a whole lot of healing to do. And it’s not just political, but racial as well.
I have not a racist fiber in my soul. My parents didn’t, either. They raised me right and I’m happy to report my wife and I raised our daughters the same way.
Sometimes, though, others make it very hard to be a good Christian, to stay that way, especially when the racism is directed at you.
Daughter # 1 lives and works in Philly. At a company that does contract work for the Federal Government. She lives in an area just a few scant blocks from where the Black Panther incident occurred on Election Day. The revelers on Election night were out of control. She regularly gets treated like crap on the bus she rides to work.
Today half her office force took the day off to watch the Inauguration. I've no problem with that. Yet when she needed off to keep a specialized doctor's appointment she was denied. She wound up in the Emergency Room two days later.
She is the lone white girl living and working in a heavily African American community. She took heavy verbal abuse not for supporting McCain but for NOT supporting Obama. Abuse of the “you’re racist if you don’t” variety.
So today she asked the only white supervisor if my daughter’s supervisor would be coming in today. A black employee heard the question and said to them both “let me tell you something. Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day. Today is the inauguration of the first black president. Ain’t no black people supposed to be at work this week, we ain’t doin’ nothin’!”
The kid wanted to bitch slap her into next week (we also raised our daughters to be no one’s pushover) but under the circumstances thought better of it.
The supervisor just laughed. No kidding, no reprimand, no rebuke. Just chuckled. Nervously. I’m trying to get the kid to report the incident but she fears reprisal. Yeah, it’s that bad there.
I know this is not indicative of all African Americans, I have many friends who are black and would be aghast at this. So does she. But there is a large portion in certain communities right now that seems openly hostile to their white neighbors and co-workers and feel empowered to do so because the President is black. You’ve seen reports of it on other sites as well and I’m telling you it’s not made up or blown out of proportion. In some places it is very bad right now.
So, Mr. Obama, you have your work cut out for you. Not only to you need to deal with two unfinished wars but you have a helluva divide forming in this country that your candidacy helped provoke AND YOU SEEMINGLY DID VERY LITTLE TO STOP. And you’d better get busy on it right quick before it starts to shred at this nation’s fibers. We have some very real external existential threats to this nation. We do not need internal distractions of this type.
I, personally, don’t think you’re up to the challenge.
For the sake of our Country I hope I’m wrong.
2 comments:
Seems to me that when Bush got elected the Christians began coming out of the woodwork. Maybe there are always some folks in every group who suddenly feel empowered when one of their own gets the big chair.
I'm going to temper my original comments a little (& delete them) because they were written still angry at today's events re:my daughter.
Mr. Bush's didn't Christians deny a young lady running to catch a bus entry on that bus. Didn't close the door on her hand as she was reaching to get in, while looking at her. Didn't pull away each time she reached the next stop. When they did finally let her on, Didn't say to the next Christian lady, who they stopped mid street for "That non-Christian bitch back there thinks we should wait for her or pick her up in the middle of the street".
Didn't tell her she could not wear a non-Christian shirt to work but could wear an Christian one.
Didn't they trash half the fucking city when Bush won.
Didn't say to her "You're not a Christian if you don't vote for Bush."
Didn't have Christian Panthers at the polling places turning away non-bush voters.
Didn't deny her a few hours off to keep a weeks planned doctors appointment, only to have her pass out 2 days later and wind up in the E.R. to find she had a heart murmur, which would have been caught at that cancelled visit. And yet allow half the Christians off work to watch the inauguration.
Didn't deny her both the day after Christmas and the day after Thanksgiving off while everyone else was allowed to have, only to find she was the only one working and coincidentally she was the only non-Christian.
Did the Christian candidate either directly, or non-directly by his silence -- stoke the flames of the divide between Christians and non-Christians to garner votes.
Did they repeatedly say "Better watch out, bitch, it's no longer the White House it's the Christian house"?
Did they say "Today is the inauguration of the first Christian president. Ain’t no Christian people supposed to be at work this week, we ain’t doin’ nothin’!”?
Nonsense. The difference is day and night.
Obama knew his base and used it and indirectly fomented the divide we are now seeing. He didn't do it directly but his proxies certainly did.
He can deny and disavow Reverend Wright and his ilk all he wants because by then the genie was already out of the bottle the comments couldn't & wouldn't be ignored and the damage done.
Reversing hate and racism is not equivalent to ending it. It is, instead, tit for tat. You non-Christians did it to us, now we Christians are going to do it to you.
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