Over the course of this historic presidential competition the issue of race has been thrust to the forefront and several occasions. Race has never really been dealt with and always seem to be a highly sensitive and contentious subject matter.
As an African-American, black, negro what ever label one cares to accept I say we should have an honest discussion
And share what it means to all of us.
Please indulge me and stroll over the hump to an honest social discourse on race.
Earlier today Kos wrote a diary talking about race baiting as a political tactic employed by republicans to induce fear for voting for a black man. And, in an earlier diary that talked about the darker version of Obama in a clinton ad. Both of these threads produced a number of comments, mainly divided between Obama supporters decrying racism and Clinton supporters saying over-reaction and the Clinton's are not racist.
I was moved to write this diary about race, racism and what it means to me: as an African American, female, born in the seventies, come of age in the 80's, in a post-racial, de-segregated, fully integrated, child of diversity, in Chicago.
My initial thought is it is fantastic that this country would have an honest discourse about race and race relations. I am talking about a conversation that circumvents the blame game, hurt egos, accusations, charges and counter charges.
The United States of America has never come to full grips with its racist past. And I am not just talking about black folks. I am talking about anyone that is considered the "others". In the first settlemnt of this country the indigenous tribes were shut out. We don't talk about it we just bought them off. I am not saying that to instigate blame I am merely pointing out the hipcrosy of our fair nation.
The same thing can be said of our Irish, Jewish, and Bohemian brothers in sisters in 19th and early 20th century NYC, Boston, and Chicago; our Asian brothers and sisters on the west coast especially during WWII and now our Latino brothers and sisters that are currently being scapegoated for seeking economic opportunity just like ever other minority group in this fair nation.
On July 5, 1852 Fredrick Douglass delivered a famous speech to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, N.Y
The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow...There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.
...What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour
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Now I can say that I have had all of the best opportunities and that is not the purpose of this discussion. But, simultaneously me feeling the necessity to qualify my position, by asserting that I have been afforded "all of the opportunities" in it self is a mild infringement on social justice.
We need an honest discussion about race and we should not feel ashamed or reluctant to call it out if we see.
Bill and Hillary Clinton and their surrogates have either engaged in or condoned covert or overt race baiting. I am very careful not to indict their supporters of race-baiting. However, the continued defense of such indefensible behavior is troubling to me. We have to be frank and honest.
Racism is still alive and well in America but it is cloaked in the coat of political correctness and shielded from Main stream America by narratives of diversity.
We are better but we are not well.
Once we can have an honest discussion and share our fears and tear down faulty assumptions we can never truly heal. We have put a forty year band-aid on this festering wound and the slightest touch aggravates the wound to no end--nearly threatening to cause a full bleed out at any moment.
We have to get real.
I am proud of this country, my country. But, we have to stop fooling our selves. Some of us live in our neighborhoods that are cosmopolitan, urban diverse dream worlds. It is progress, but it is not enough. We have legislated through racism--great accomplishment.
Now we are trying to ignore it.
Faint shame and outrage when someone is accused of it.
I say no more. We now have to talk about it. And what better place than a progressive community full of scholars and contemporary liberals and democrats.