Reactionary conservatives are smiling through the racial apocalypse. To them race baiting is a joke, as "humorist" Rush Limbaugh will tell you when he's calling Mexicans "stupid." Or it's a matter of semantics when they claim that Sonia Sotomayor is a "racialist" which, far as I can tell, is the smooth jazz version of being a racist. Or they are just merely reporting the "facts" when they repeatedly call an abortion doctor "the killer."
Then, right wingers go nuts and start "Second Amendment-ing" innocent people, and for the life of them conservatives can't imagine how such things happen.
I could connect the dots for them, but there are plenty of other folks out there trying to do that. Instead I'd like to focus your attention on something else this June 12th.
Love. Or Loving, as in Loving Day.
As I've written previously: June 12th, Loving Day, is not named for the emotion of loving, but, fittingly, for Richard Loving and his wife Mildred. Richard was white, and Mildred was black, and when they were married in 1958, their home state of Virginia was one of 16 that still considered interracial marriage to be literally criminal. Hard as it may be to believe now, interracial marriage -- miscegenation is the pejorative -- was once a severely odious concept. In 1912, Congressman Seaborn Roddenbery of Georgia tried to introduce an amendment to the Constitution banning such unions. To his colleagues in Congress he lectured:
It is contrary and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is contrary and averse to the very principles of a pure Saxon government. It is subversive of social peace. ... No more voracious parasite ever sucked at the heart of pure society and moral status than the one which welcomes or recognizes everywhere the sacred ties of wedlock between Africa and America.
Then, as now, a particular ilk of politician tried to make bank using relationships between consenting adults as a wedge issue. Substitute "Africa and America" in the previous with "same sex couples" and you get my drift.
The Lovings spent time in jail for the high crime of being married to each other and were forced to move from Virginia. Then, on June 12 of 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Lovings' criminal convictions and struck down all laws against interracial marriage.
Now there's something like 4.3 million mixed-marriage couples in the United States. And the son of one such union is our president.
It's easy to get discouraged -- if not downright fearful -- when the race baiters dial their spew up to "11," and their reactionary puppets respond with violence. But take a moment on this June 12th to look at where our nation once was and where we are now, and take solace in knowing that we are headed in a better direction.
For more perspective, please visit That Minority Thing.com
hunger for lessons of learned muse and lovers alike
considerate bigots that hate hate and wallow in their copious reciept
Love covers fear, but hate is an orphan.
Just as radicals always do, the KKK and other hate mongers of the time predicted the miscegenistic horrors that would ensue from the union of people of different races. And what'd we get? A bit over four decades of proof that there really isn't that great a difference between us, after all. The children of these parents are no more screwed up than more boring, monochromatic rest of us. But by having a view into both ethnicities, these kids are the ones who can lead the rest of us into appreciating each other more thoroughly. And so is progress made.
I think we have to keep this in mind when reacting to the crap the righties spin today. They have been proved wrong so many time before, a little trip down memory lane on nearly any issue they flap about is always helpful in predicting reality. Extremists of any stripe are always far too ready to destroy the village in order to save it. They are proof of philosopher George Santayana's claim that, "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim."
its peace can be whispered to the quiet corners of the mind and churn the writhing found there-in
its for me. no, I do it for us so there is no room for savagery only you and me.
Sometimes it's hard to be positive isn't it?
I am not sure where you get your numbers, but it appears that you have grossly overestimated and grossly underestimated the significance of miscegenation in US society. According to the 2000 census, 6.8 million people claimed to be of more than one race (2.4% of the population). Although your example points to mixed black and white marriages, the truth is that the highest number of mixed race respondents (2.2 million) claimed to be white and some other race, followed by white and American Indian/Alaskan native (1.1 million), white and asian (900,000) and then white and black (800,000). Asians make up 2.8% of the population, American Indians make up 0.8% of the population and blacks make up 12.1% of the population.
These statistics tell a different story than the one told in your post. What these numbers show is significant racism against blacks as measured by exogamy rates. There are twelve times more blacks than American indians, but blacks are less likely to marry whites than American indians are. Similarly, there are almost five times more blacks than Asians, but blacks are less likely than Asians to marry whites. Again, what is the progress that you are referring to when you claim that we are moving in the right direction. Who is the we that you are referring to?
Hopefully....trying to stay positive here.
I'm white and a liberal, but I wasn't prepared for the depth of racial hatred in this country. I never would have believed the stories of "everyday racism" - in which orders at fast food joints get mangled, or grocery checkout tallies are obviously wrong, or seating in restaurants are strangely delayed, or dozens of other little insults occur - unless I experienced them myself.
Racism runs far, far deeper in America than most white Americans will admit, and unless they begin to admit it racism will continue to be a problem in this country. Let's remember and understand that racism is not a black problem, it's a white problem.
Wo, that hardly ever happens.