Race Matters
In just a few days, Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Few presidents in history will have entered the Oval Office with higher expectations or a more daunting set of economic and national security challenges to confront.
Barack Obama's electoral success was said to rest, in part, on the fact that he, a first generation African-American, did not seek to exploit or campaign on the subject of America's racial history. In other words, Obama "transcended "race by ignoring the subject, and discussed it only when forced to do so by others. Ironically, he was left to lift the burden of race and racism imposed by white society upon the backs of blacks for more than three hundred years. Nonetheless, many in our country take pride that America has seemingly placed our racial history behind us, with the so-called "baggage of the civil rights movement" finally packed away in the attic of history.
Implicit in the claim of Obama's racial transcendence is the notion that racial equality has been achieved, and that black people have little, if anything, left to complain about today. After all, blacks enjoy prominence at highest levels of the corporate, entertainment, athletic, and political circles of power.
Lost in this exercise of euphoric self-congratulations and back-slapping are the reports that in the immediate aftermath of Obama's election, gun sales sky rocketed throughout the country, along with a significant increase in threats to Obama's life. A lottery was organized in one community to wager on the exact date of Obama's entry into the halls of martyrdom.
Recently, three individuals from Staten Island in New York were arrested for having planned to attack any blacks they encountered following the announcement of Obama's electoral victory. Perhaps even more ominous are the recent spate of police shootings of unarmed black men. But for the omnipresence of cell phone cameras, these assaults would have been dismissed as appropriate measures of self defense taken by law enforcement officials in the line of duty. While lying face down in a mall with a police officer's foot on his back, Oscar Grant, who was unarmed, was shot to death for allegedly resisting arrest. The police officer in question claimed that he was reaching for his taser gun and mistakenly pulled out his revolver instead.
This incident called to mind the case of Amadou Diallo, another unarmed man who was shot at 41 times while holding his wallet in the air in his outstretched hands in an effort to identify himself. The police officers claimed they thought his wallet was a gun.
Perhaps the most dramatic display of what activist Dick Gregory maintained so many years ago about it being "open season on Negroes in America" occurred several years ago in New Orleans Louisiana. A black man holding a hunting knife was surrounded by thirteen police officers armed with semi-automatic weapons. Allegedly, they felt threatened by this one man, but rather than attempt to wound or incapacitate him, they instead unleashed a volley of fire, killing him instantly.
A few weeks later, another threat was released upon a small rural community when a moose started to romp through its streets posing a potential physical threat to any people it might encounter. The local police, rather than killing the moose, fired a tranquilizer dart into the animal, and called in a helicopter to safely lift it back to its natural habitat.
Blacks who complain about police malice, misconduct or murder are said to carry a chip on their shoulders. No, it's not a chip, it's is a bullet in their backs. We are urged to stop carrying the past around like a "monstrous corpse" in the cemetery. The time has come, we are told, to bury it!
On January 20th, when the first African- American President moves into the White House, it doesn't mean that we've entered a "post-racial" society or grant impunity to those who are convinced that it's still open season on blacks and other minorities. Contrary to what passes as conventional wisdom, the conversation on race in America has not ended with the election of Barack Obama. It has just begun.
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Ms. Langhart Cohen, I appreciate your efforts with Race and Reconciliation. Great article. You know all of obsession with Obama's inauguration is ALL about race. If we are ever to get past race, it can't be the focal point. Obama's election has already resulted in the out-of-hand dismissal of legitimate claims of racism. The answer is somewhere along the lines of "You've got to be kidding me, we have a black President !". I, like many other blacks, supported Obama because I didn't want to be the reason he didn't get elected. Blacks are accused of supporting Obama to the tune of 95%, purely on the basis of racial solidarity or pride. First of all I'm not proud to be black because I had nothing to do with that happening. Secondly, if blacks hadn't supported Obama, they'd be accused of being crabs in a barrel pulling each other down. Many people are to blame for the race problem, but make no mistake, the issue has always been sabotage by the white global collective. I'm under no illusions about what Obama can do as President; in fact I'm suspicious that his election is nothing more than a refinement of racism and the strategic placing of a buffer, not unlike in the Godfather. The country needs some serious re-branding, and only a non-white person, specifically black one could provide tangible proof of the "change" he so personifies.
Great article!
Fact is that Barack responded to the race issue with a major speach. The follow up by the4 press, in almost all camps, and by others was slo loud it could not be heard.
You realize the real cause of he economic problems is people reaching above their station for loans they could not afford. It is most certainly not the loan companies. Maybe congress who "forced" loaning to risky people (read "black").
Yes, race (and class) is THE issue.
You said it girl. My sentiments exactly.
Electing Obama does not mean that the race problem has come to a close. I mean, if I have to hear one more person say they voted for Obama because he has a'white' side, I'm going to hurl.
I'm bi-racial. I went to a private, suburban Catholic high school. My nickname in high school was "Sorry Steve." I got that nickname because I had straight hair and spoke "like a white guy" and my friends would always slip up and say the word n*gg*r around me and have to say "Sorry Steve." These were the kids who weren't racist. I also dated girls in high school who told me they could never bring me home to meet their fathers. For the most part these people were good people, people who are open to progress, who actually openly praise progress. Yet, these modes of thinking are habit. They said these words because their fathers and their fathers' fathers said them. People are changing - but it is no time to rest on our laurels.
There's more work to be done. But, we can never forget some don't want things to change.
We may be half way there, but we still got ways to go...
Racism, like some diseases, cannot be completely eradicated
Who is the most powerful man (on jan 20) in the world answer, Barack Obama. Who is the most powerful women in the united states answer, Oprah Winfrey. What race are they, answer, black
American blacks still face higher rates of poverty, infant mortality, lowest high school completion record, lowest home values. There are only two possible answers for the cause of this situation: either blacks are not getting the resources they need to compete due to inherent systemic flaws OR blacks are genetically disposed to these troubles. Whichever answer you chose is probably a safe bet on how you feel about race in this country.
I must admit, hpbiased statement is not only silly...it
But ohiodem250, your statement is just as ignorant..
It''s been proven by science...
This discrimination is not just in the US, it's been world wide for 400 years. The slave trade was created for economic reasons. For these reasons the religion was allow to justify slavery by using the Bible and other scriptures to justify it. This was done for centuries.
Also, if you had any clue about European history, the fall of the Roman Empire plunged Europe into a state of ignorance for at least 500 years. It took another 500 years for Europe to regain its stature.
For those who think any group can just jump into "enlightenment" after just a few decades of debatable justices..
and then stop making ridiculous assumptions
You're exactly correct. Even if blacks were/are the stupidest people on the planet, it would be all the more reason to get them the most help of all. Of course, all of the challenges you described are not a coincidence; the white collective needs a measuring stick or frame of reference, blacks provide that for them.
mrs cohen please go on oreilly/ hannity/ fox morning friends / chris mathews / lou dobbs/ cnn and relay this to the american people. ok
Thanks, Janet.
Obama is biracial. A mix as most of us are if we looked hard enough at our genealogy and looked deeper than our skin color.
What I like about him is that he ushers in a time of intellectualism. Brain power has no color.
we have not seen racism until you witness in the media escpecially fox news and right wing radio for the next 8 yeras . fox will use a lot of code words , the white conservative talk show host will come close to using the n word and i predict that rush will in fact use the n word on his radio show and they wont fire him.
For all the talk of black oppression, Roland Burris sure made out like a bandit....
A bandit is a criminal, but Burris was legally appointed.
Your use of the phrase "all the talk of black oppression" implies that this oppression does not exist, but it clearly does.
What else you got?
And he is the ONLY black Senator, out of 100....
How did he "make out like a bandit?" Because he's black? Because he took advantage of an opportunity to be appointed to the US Senate? Roland Burris is not being seated because he's black. He's being seated because the appointment was legal. If Blago had appointed a white man or woman under the same circumstances, the same scenario would have played out. Perhaps the only difference is that, had it been a white man or woman, so much attention would not have been given to the color of his or her skin, especially considering the fact that a white man or woman would have simply been joining a body of government with 99 other white people. But I guess from your perspective, when a black man is legally appointed and stands on his convictions, he's "making out like a bandit." Therefore, I assume that, from your perspective, had he been white, you would have seen it as normal procedure!
I have a feeling that you wouldn't understand black oppression if it hit you in the face!
Unbelievable. A qualified black man gets a position as the ONLY black senator and he makes out like bandit when maybe some old white dude got passed over. Gee that justifies killing hundreds of innocent black men. That excuses all your racism
I am always truly amazed how 'the policemen were threatned by a man with a bat' and they had to kill him in order to disarm him. It hurts to know that a blackman's life values nothing in this society and in the eyes of all these officers who are suppose to 'Protect and Serve' These officers are to be charged to the full extent of the law when they are wrong. Not because they are officers they should get off so easily... a life is a life and the person killed belongs to a family. There are people who are serving time for less crimes than killing someone. Why are they above the law?
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