Monday, October 12, 2009

I received this via e-mail and can't agree more. Racism is alive and well in the USA. White people get annoyed when blacks complain about racism. Yet, they continue to judge people by the color or their skin. Right now, there is such an increase of negative rhetoric against President Barack Obama, it's scary. Those children calling for the assasination of our President are definitely getting that idea from theire parents and other grown-ups that they are around. READ ON....
And yes, Andrew M. Manis is white.
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Andrew M. Manis is associate professor of history at Macon State College in
Georgia and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon Telegraph
.

Andrew M. Manis: When Are WE Going to Get Over It?

For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race
problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have
been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their
difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans
finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White
Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes"
should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in
"Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of
comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to
John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may
recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."

Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once
again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and
United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have
been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years,
conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the
right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that
anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan,
or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment,
perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone
did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case
who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.

But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties
again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven
what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is
possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear
that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to
"assassinate Obama."


Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before
we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world,
look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get
over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we
white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us
superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments
about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?


How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head
of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people
end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist
jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?

I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making
racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long
until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal
responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the
Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United
States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?

How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds,
both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that
"red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?

Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect
an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long
enough to see us white people get over our racism problem.

But here's my three-point plan:

First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House
that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service)
will protect him and his family from us white people.

Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying,
in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President
Obama.

Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise
the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of
our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."
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It takes a Village to protect our President.

3 comments:

Kittie Howard said...

Your comments about racism are, unfortunately, too true. Unbeknownst to you, I've been blogging about some of the same issues (thru a true story Harry and I took years ago.) My blog is The Block. Most of this anti-Obama rhetoric is racism hiding behind free speech. I support our President and am proud of all that he's accomplished. I was even prouder when he won the Nobel Prize and blogged about this pride.

Anyway, I lived in Nairobi for three years, could get around pretty good in Kiswahili at one time, and enjoyed my visit to Tanzania and the hydrofoil to Zanzibar -- the cloves museum there is incredible.

Anonymous said...

And you should make an apology to Lucia Whalen.
Shame on you actions too.

Whatever you're writing have no credit to me for you jump into conclusions too quicky.
For you people who don't know what i'm talking about read what this woman wrote.

http://www.jambonetwork.com/blog/?p=56467&cpage=2#comment-11151

and the proff she's a dumbass
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/hwsnxljhlp--Henry-Louis-Gates-Jr-Break-In-911-Call

Anonymous said...

people forget so easily that life is too short and that we all have the same needs and are going to die anyway. As long as God is on the throne nothing is gonna happen to Obama. After all if they had power to stop him from going to the white house why didnt they do it? God is the final decision maker, people shouldnt waste their time.