.
. . . as if it hadn't been exposed before.
In most of my diaries I try to provide links and photos and quotes and vids and all sorts of reader-friendly elements in order to take advantage of this wonderful "internets" / "web log" medium. Save for one or two here, I'm just going to have my say.
When Barack Obama was elected our Nation's 44th President, and then sworn into office on January 20th of this year, I thought to myself:
"Well, you know, at least the Racists can say to themselves, 'At least he'll be a role model for all those black kids in school and get 'em to stay in school and stay out of trouble, so at least that's a good thing about that negra getting into office."
I mean, it's amazing how the bigots can take virtually any positive thing and turn it into something sneering and sinister. Please continue on...
.
. . . but, hey, if it helps keep 'em occupied in activities that don't involve mass-murdering fellow Americans by blowing up Federal Buildings or, say, dragging black men to death behind pickup trucks, then I'll take what I can get.
I thought that this take on Barack Obama's ascendancy to the Oval Office would salve some of the racists' inevitable Sore Loserness and proclivity towards yalping and behaving with the crudeness and violence that their leadership encourages1. How wrong I was. Hat tip to Clytemnestra, whose comment really lit this fire under me. Of course, mention and credit and thanks should be given to Deoliver47's excellent/sad/anger-making Diary, in which Clytemnestra's comment appears.
.
What didn't really occur to me was the fact that the racists and bigots and Right Wing knuckdraggers don't want black kids (or any kids of color, except maybe East Asians?) to stay in school, to graduate, to feel like they have a future, to feel enfranchised and part of These United States. It should have occurred to me that every African American child who graduates high school and enters college or a skilled trade is seen as Threat to the bigots among us; is viewed by the Racists as a potential competitor for that job or promotion. And the Bigots and Racists fear this competition.
As a white, male, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, I apologize for the less evolved of my race and ancestry for their working frothing overtime to rip apart this Nation of ours.
BenGoshi
________________________
1. Noting the broad swath of today's African American leaders (whether in politics or business or media or religion or, say, community organizing), lament and decry and work against violence.