Reflections on Race from the Nation's Capital

Whenever I come to Washington, D.C. I always take time to make certain pilgrimages.

I enjoy sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the place where Martin Luther King electrified the nation with his "I Have a Dream" speech. I try to imagine the hope that permeated the crowd on that sweltering August day in 1963.

I also go to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the grave of NAACP Field Secretary in Mississippi Medgar Evers, one of the early martyrs within the civil rights movement. His assassination occurred in arguably the most chaotic 24 hours in American history.

June 11, 1963, began with the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk at a busy intersection in downtown Saigon. Alabama Gov. George Wallace stood symbolically in front of the University of Alabama to prohibit two Negro students from registering for classes. President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation that evening elevating the cause of civil rights to a moral issue.

These events occurred before Byron De La Beckwith hid in the bushes and cowardly shot Evers in the back as he returned to his Jackson, Miss. home.

Though tragic, Evers death also symbolizes the hope during a very hostile time in 1963. But 46 years later, in many ways, America is a very different place. Hard to imagine two years ago Rep. Barbara Lee, president of the Congressional Black Caucus would have the honor of introducing an African American commander in chief, as she did at the annual CBC conference dinner.

Many attending the conference see racism still at work. They view many of the protests against President Barack Obama as nothing more than thinly veiled racism. And some would conclude that "thinly veiled" is giving the behavior the benefit of doubt.

From the street corner where I stand, signs that refer to the president as "primate in chief" or the American taxpayers as the "Jews for Obama's oven," reflect overt racism and hatred of the highest order.

When South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson called the president a liar before a joint session of Congress, how would reasonable people define that one? Wilson's defenders point to the vitriol leveled toward former President George W. Bush by liberals during his eight years in the White House.

But no one on the left felt the former president's actions justified publicly disrespecting the office of president of the United States or the House chamber.

Was it Obama's policy on health care or the percentage of melanin in his skin that led to Wilson's uncontrollable urge to forget the setting by calling the president on his alleged mendacity?

Wilson's political background, which includes favoring keeping the Confederate flag flying at the South Carolina statehouse, robs him of portraying himself of a populist swept up in the moment -- at least from my perspective.

I agree with former President Jimmy Carter who recently stated: "When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds."

We have certainly witnessed an unhinged element of the country that few would conclude were not racist. But should we make the nuts emblematic of the whole?

If the fringe were remotely close to a majority, there is no way Barack Hussein Obama would be the 44th President of the United States. I find the subtext to most discussions on racism depend greatly on who decides what's racist. Is it the perceived victim or victimizer?

Those accused of racism talk about their intentions, while those feeling the pain of racism talk about their experience. This makes racism in the public conversation the elephant in the room -- an emotion-based conversation with each side feeling right rests solely with their perspective.

Moreover, any discussion on the impact of racism that does not include poverty is, in my opinion, useless. I suspect that we will continue to discuss poverty long after the need to discuss racism has diminished.

But racism cannot and should not be ignored. I would certainly welcome the day when racism is truly behind us, confined to the ash pile of irrelevance along with the fringe groups who seek to keep its flickering embers alive.

Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist and blog-talk radio host. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at [e-mail] or visit his Web site: byronspeaks.com

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Comments

[tnkeating]

Byron, unfortunately you will probably always see racism when a person of a certain color disagrees with you, but your wrong, hopefully most people recognize our desent for what it is, we are all Americans, I am not a hypenated American and I can't walk a mile in your shoes, but I love my country, as we all do, but we just have different reasons and different beliefs. If you remember George Wallace was a Democrat as were all the southern Govenors at that time. John Wilks Booth was a Democrat and Abraham Lincoln was a republican and for a time, Martin luther King was a republican, for the most part there were no republicans in the south after the civil war and it remained that way for many many years. I'm sure as you that there are democrat, republican and independent racist out there, only one group sees theirs as pay back for being mistreated in the past, and the other group has no excuse. Hopefully they are both very small groups of people that don't represent the vast majority. I voted for change I could believe in, not change What I believe in.

[Byron Williams - Huffpost Blogger]

Just curious, what leads you to think I would see racism with anyone of a different hue who disagrees with me?

[LMPE]

Even if racism and poverty disappear from the face of the earth, will homophobia also be relegated to the dustbin of history? Millennia of hatred of various groups by various groups probably won't go away in a few years. Certainly we've made progress - as Obama's election shows - but there remains so much to do worldwide, and it doesn't help that Faux News is allowed to broadcast hate 24/7.

[mcmchugh99]

Republicans wouldn't keep playing the Race Card all the time if there wasn't some political benefit for them. I think they get the most benefit out of it among white voters who the South, where the majority very likely does despise teh very idea of a black president. Beck, Limbaugh and the rest are aiming their broadcasts right at this audience, and we know it's having an effect from a number of opinion polls showing that the majority of Southern whites think that Obama was a Muslim born in Africa, or at least "aren't sure" who he really is or where he was born.

There's nothing new in this Republican Southern Strategy, of course. They have been doing it for decades, only now they have turned it up full blast.

[Flavor]

Mr. Byron first let me say thank you for the article, let me also state that racism will not ever go anywhere it's been here since the begining of time and no matter how many of a person's favorite chocolate chip cookies you bake some still won't like you. Racism, also goes further than black&white you have blacks who are racist to there own color some don't like darker skin blacks ect.... but what one can do is,we can educate our children to judge people by their character and not by skin color. America, came out in droves to see this man get elected we've come a long way baby, we ain't where we want to be but we sho ain't where we use to be why? because people wanted to see change President Obama could not have won with the black vote alone he needed the people and they showedup to showout. No, racism won't go away but you, me, them, he, she, us, we don't have to move in. Just my view.

[faith2hope]

Love the Flavor of your expression - Fanned

[ramsha]

Rep. Joe Wilson rudely interrupted President Obama during his address to the joint session of the congress shouting “You lie”. Since then the responses from the public and our politicians have been varied. Some expressed an opinion that he is just a jerk and not at all a racist. Others said that he is basically a rabid racist and acted like a jerk due to his intense hatred of our first black President. Some said that he is both a racist and a jerk. Another group of people have condoned and commended him on his outburst.
However, we cannot disregard the fact that Joe Wilson’s rude outburst and subsequent ranting, was inappropriate. If Joe Wilson was truly concerned that the healthcare reform as presented by our President may enable the illegal aliens to reap the benefits, he would have or should have called the White House to discuss the issues either before or after the speech. After all President Obama has repeatedly said that he would be happy to hear all criticisms and suggestions from any body. Or he would/ should have presented his concerns to the various committee members formulating the final Bill. Nobody prevented him from raising these concerns in a civil and appropriate and timely manner. It is obvious that he wanted to disrespect and bring down the highest office of our country more than the redress of his concerns. More than likely, his outburst was due to his resentment of the person holding the office.

[faith2hope]

It was easy for him to make the call to the White House after his actions were completed it would have been just as easy for him to have done this prior to the address. The other problem is that all the men seated around Mr. Wilson seem unsurprised at all by the outburst. When someone does something unplanned or unscripted the natural reaction to those closest to him is to turn and look in shock seeing it has never been done. These people never moved, so it leaves one to think that it was a planned disrespectful action.

Mr. Wilson is a military man a Marine and to say he got caught up emotionally and lost his bearing is a weak excuse and blemish to all the military men and woman who are trained to conduct themselves in a respectful manner. Especially to the Commander and Chief. Will I call the man a racist based soley on this one event I'll reserve that but when I put them with some of his other political actions then I have to take another look.

[PlaceboStudman]

I'll probably get my head ripped off for making this observation, but the way I see it, the problem comes from the absolute cult like devotion to President Obama. It's long been well known that there are simply people who believe that President Obama can do no wrong. Some of those people believe that he can do no wrong because he is the first black president and therefore should not be criticized because he is a symbol of a new kind of America. Others feel he is immune to criticism because they feel he represents a die hard liberal/progressive perspective, and those who identify as a liberal/progressive simply do not want to admit that he can do no wrong, because that would lead people to believe that Obama is just like Bush. Unfortunately in both these cases, the groups I list are so deeply engrained with their belief that Obama can do no wrong, that when someone points out a flaw or a chink in the armor, his supporters have absolutely no response, so they resort to throwing out accusations of racism in the absence of any other logical rational response to logical rational opposition

[RightWingMarine]

I agree.

[faith2hope]

I'm a Obama SUPPORTER not FOLLOWER and it is what so many are confused about that we actual believe in what he is trying to do. If President Obama had been in office say a year and you were unhappy with were he is leading the country and you rally against the policy and not the man then I could go along with SOME of the protest. The signs and backlash that is directed toward our President are of a personal nature not a political one, that started immedately into his Presidency before he could do anyting. This is all in the eye of "the perceived victim and the victimizer" as Mr. Williams stated.

When you receive the racism, its not difficult to establish what is racist and what is not , it is received on a daily basis however subtle it may be. It sounds likeyou're asking those who receive it to wait until you and others pronounce it racism. Tthere are many people black, white,brown and yellow who disagree with some of the President's decisions, but have not resorted to disrepect of the office or the man. Review your history much of the actions you see today are straight out of the history books pre-civil rights movement. Not all is racism, but most is and here we are again at the crossroads of what is racism and what is not and watching people who are not the reciever of it explain it away.

[PlaceboStudman]

Why should we have to wait a year to object to something that is happening now, that will be resolved in a year? I have been rallying my butt off trying to educate and inform people on a different perspective on this Health Care debate since it began, and because I have a different perspective as someone with a disability than someone, in fact most people, who only ever has to worry about minor injuries, my opinion, experience and perspective is completely ignored and disregarded, and in a year or more, we will have moved onto other things, and it wont matter anyway, because I will likely be dead. But, because I am trying to reduce death and suffering, instead of saving people money, nobody cares