After the Civil War, when African-Americans began to experience freedom from enslavement for the first time in over 300 years, there was a brief period of jubilee. During this period of time, African-Americans began to be enfranchised and efforts were made by the Lincoln Era Republicans and northerners to educate and empower former slaves.
The North had sacrificed much in keeping the Union whole and Southerners had sacrificed much trying to keep their stranglehold on the lives and labor of black people and their myth of white supremacy. Lincoln was assassinated before he could fully cement his vision of reconstruction and re-union of this country. He was killed by a group of men who considered themselves super-patriots. John Wilkes Booth thought that people would laud his action and hold him to be a hero.
Over the next 10 years black people would watch their freedoms slowly slip away into nights of terror, and the advent of Jim Crow, which was "slavery by another name". Jim Crow officially ended when I was a teenager, but not without the upheaval and straining of our democracy to its breaking point.....at this point, I just want President Obama to live.
The Southern Strategy is white supremacy/jim crow "light" and we see some of the proponents and architects of that strategy on television daily. One of the truisms of racism, is, that it is often accompanied by other isms, sexism, the oppression of the GLBT community, children, etc. And when we elected Barack Obama after the dark days of Bush and the oligarchy he represented, we experienced a kind of second civil war.
We won. However, I predict that in ten years, the hatred, the need to feel superior, the unconscious and conscious racism that still exists in this country will dominate again. The backlash against black people will build on itself and many of the gains that we have made in recent years will be challenged and there will be attempts to obliterate them by those we call Republicans today.
I believe that their "purging" of their party for purity, is really about forming a white supremacist party to restore the dominance of white people over the growing numbers of people of color in this country. One seldom sees black republicans these days, except for the cats paws and shills, operating out of pure, cynical self interest and internalized racism. We had blacks that fought on the side of the Confederacy, too.
I watch the continued, rapid dehumanization of our first black President.
You know that there were black governors, black representatives in the State Government, etc. shortly after the Civil War? They were purged, lost their jobs, and could barely make a living, ten years later, because they had fallen out of fashion.
Of course, any president will get his/her fair share of criticism---and he/she should. However, the dehumanization of black leaders is an old art in this country. It is an art which has precedent, style and technique. These old techniques are being brushed off, re-modeled and re-instituted for our so-called post-racial society.
When I hear Lindsay Graham, Pat Buchanan, Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe Wilson, and their ilk speak, I hear the Confederacy echo in their voices. When I see some on the left, join gleefully in trashing this President and join forces with those who hate him on the right, I see the prioritizing of personal agendas, over the welfare of those who are really hurting and could benefit from some of the crumbs in the health bill. Just repeal it, they say. Never mind the weak and powerless who stand to benefit from even this weakened version. I hear too much class and race privilege and not enough compassion and reason.
I also don't think that President Obama truly understands how much they hate him. I have encountered people who were raised and beloved in families who really cannot grasp that there will be some people in their lives who will hate them, the air they breathe, the ground they walk on, simply because of the color of their skin. They do not understand that they can be innocently walking along minding their own business, taking their child to eat, doing their job at the airport, riding in their car on the way to work....and they could die or be seriously injured just because some racist had a bad day.
In Atlanta, where I live, a black woman working at the airport, had her arm dislocated by a white veteran, who says he has PTSD.He spit on her and called her a bitch before he did it. A month ago, another black woman, herself a veteran, was taking her daughter to eat, and she was attacked by a white man, who beat her for no reason, I had a black Somali friend, who was shoved by a white man in the store and when she complained, he called her a terrorist. My car was sideswiped by a white man, who would not let me change lanes. He backed up after he hit me, cursing at me, calling me black bitch this and black bitch that, then sped off before the police came. As a black woman, I am noticing a trend. The displacement of anger toward our President and government, onto random black folks is an old trend.
The pendulum that tells the time of racial attitudes swings both ways. We used to call it "white backlash". What it is is the resurgence of white racism. It has swung far to the left with the election of Barack Obama. It will swing back the other way, sooner than I thought. Most black people know this. We are quietly watching this phenomena because we know there will be a price to pay for his election and sooner or later we will pay it. I pray he lives out his term, I pray Michelle and the children live long and healthy lives.
However, given our history as a country......
Update: Just came back from a baby shower for my soon to be born first grandson...thank you all for your comments, even from those with whom I disagree. Peace and justice, good night.