While doing some historical genealogical research this morning, to assist a poster to Afrigeneas I came across an interesting record.

I was browsing though papers of The Freedman's Bureau:

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands...
...often referred to as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established in the War Department by an act of March 3, 1865. The Bureau supervised all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, border states, District of Columbia, and Indian Territory.

Indulge me, please.  One of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs is A Pirate Looks at 40.  Somehow it reaches out to that part of me that sometimes longs for a different world, different challenges, different opportunities.  And sometimes you look back at a bright moment of opportunity and wonder if it'll ever come back.  

Yes I am a pirate
two hundred years too late.
The cannons don't thunder
there's nothing to plunder
I'm an over-forty victim of Fate.
Arriving too late....
              ---A Pirate Looks at Forty
                 from Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads,
                 Jimmy Buffett

I'm looking at 58 this week and it's got me thinking about the miracles of the past year, from the candidacy of Barack Obama to the Peace Prize for Al Gore and the ICCC.

Maybe I get to be a pirate again after all.

I just got through watching CNN Presents: Black in America, Reclaiming the Dream.  It featured a panel discussion that included many scholars, religious leaders and activists in the black community.  There were several segments including ones on the breakdown of the black family, the achievement gap and the HIV/AIDS crisis.

I found it especially interesting that not once did I hear any serious discussion of racism or any serious dialog about black/white interaction in America at all.

I work for a national nonprofit called Everyday Democracy, and we're busy these days. For more than 15 years, our organization - formerly known as the Study Circles Resource Center - has helped communities organize large-scale, inclusive dialogues about racism and then take action to create positive changes in the ways their communities address race. But this year is proving to be one of our most fruitful years ever, as news headlines (Barack Obama's success, the Jena 6, the Rev. Wright saga) and media events (like the recent PBS film Traces of the Trade) have more people than ever ready and willing to talk about race.

If this is an area of special interest to you, I invite you to check out our anti-racism resources at Everyday Democracy, as well as our DemocracySpace blog, which is becoming a hotbed of civil, nonpartisan discussion about issues of race. Read below the flip to learn about some recent thought-provoking posts, as well as an upcoming (July 23) online discussion of some subtle ways white privilege stands in the way of real racial progress in our country.

In the last year, West Virginia has taken quite a few hits in the media. A journalist friend described it as a "target-rich environment."

The hits I'm thinking about now are images hurtling through the Web and airwaves portraying us as racist and xenophobic. Obviously, West Virginia, like other places, has its share of racists and bigots - and quite a few of them wound up talking to the press.

But I get upset when people paint the whole state and its history with that brush. West Virginia has a pretty interesting past in terms of race relations. Even before statehood, there were tensions between western mountaineers and the slaveholding elite that dominated Virginia politics.

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.
Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.
Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them."
~ Thomas Jefferson  (Autobiography, 1821)

It was a Saturday morning, late in June.  The year was 2008.  In the background, radio broadcaster, Scott Simon could be heard.  The host of Weekend Edition offered his Reflections on Race and the Presidential Election. Alexander listened halfheartedly.  It was not that he was not interested in the topic; he is and he was.  Alex was distracted.  

Two articles have come out yesterday and today, one at the Washington Post and one put out by Reuters, that are dealing with the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll about the presidential race.  Given that the articles themselves are almost all about race, race, and more race, maybe that should read "president's race," instead.

Come now below the fold!  I've got headlines!  I've got summaries!  I've got the one thing Americans are more concerned about, but that the media barely mentions! C'mon, how can you pass up that teaser?

Seriously...

It's a long five months until Election Day. Everybody has a video camera....and the closet racists in the GOP are going to be getting mighty antsy if Obama looks to be pulling away or even making it close. They've already started to ditch the subtlety (ahem, "baby mama," ahem).

So, how long before some GOP blowhard -- either in what he thinks is a semi-private setting or even on cable news -- just blurts out the N-word? GOP Rep. Geoff Davis already called Obama "boy." Is "colored" next? Is there a gradual stepping stone set of words that will lead inexorably to the rhetorical nuclear bomb?

Macaca.

UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD...

Originally posted on www.YoureNoJackKennedy.com

Here's the Gallup poll asking specific questions on race:

Most Say Race Will Not Be a Factor in Their Presidential Vote

A large majority of blacks, 78%, and an even larger majority of whites, 88%, say the fact that Barack Obama is black makes no difference in terms of their likelihood of voting for him for president...

A separate poll question measured the perceived impact of Obama's race by asking respondents to speculate about the impact of race on the election more generally...

A third set of questions asked about the potential use of race (the "race card" one hears so much about in campaign coverage) by the two political parties.

Blacks appear to believe race will be a factor in the way the election campaign is run by both Republicans and Democrats, but more so for the former than the latter.

Forty-eight percent of blacks say the Democrats' campaign will make race a factor this year, while 70% say Republicans will use race as an issue. Whites are much more uniform in their responses to this question: About half say each party will use race as an issue in the campaign.

The fascinating thing is figuring out whether folks consider using race is a good thing or a bad thing. That's not so clear from the polling.

The data reviewed here suggest that while most voters deny that Obama's race affects them personally, many do think it will have an effect on the race overall -- either helping Obama or hurting him. Still, there is no consensus on the part of the average voter on whether Obama's race will be a net plus or a net minus.

Thus, there is little guidance from the voters themselves in the attempt to answer the question about the ultimate impact of Obama's race on the campaign this year.

The proof of the pudding will be in the vote, and (maybe) in the exit polls.

That I am white must be understood if my words that follow are to be of any matter.

That I am white, and old enough to remember a boyhood spent in a small Midwestern town like so many others back then in which a love of God and guns was surpassed only by a dislike of colors other than my own, must be understood if what I am to say next is to have any meaning.

I voted and will do so again for Senator Barack Obama.

Not talking about "the rumor" isn't going to make it go away.

No one really uses the term "whitey" anymore.  Except for rumor mongers and a diarist trying to make a point, albeit maybe not as well as I'd hoped.  Divisiveness is not intended.  The term is used here as a cliche.  Thanks to Marketgeek for helping me work out what is, hopefully, a better intro.

White Flight.

Those two words have been used for decades in the United States to cover up one of the more covert and ugly practices of white urban homeowners. Namely, at the first sighting of a black family on the block, move away as fast as you can.

A combination of Barack Obama and the subprime mortgage crisis are bringing this disgusting practice to an end.  

I've been paying close attention to the race issue after Obama gave his brilliant speech on the subject. Everyone has a story to tell. They have been a victim of racism or they have been racist, or they know someone who is racist. I like reading the posts. We learn from each other...however, sometimes we get frustrated with each other. So I asked myself, "what else can we do?"

I warn the reader now; I don't pretend that this will be comfortable, but perhaps that is as it should be.

Right now, I am watching MSNBC's "Meeting David Wilson" and mulling over the thoughts derived from documentary. I am stunned; I thought that I was born into a "post-racial generation", one that carried no prejudice toward African Americans, but certainly not one devoid of any racial prejudice. That term is striking in and of itself, "Post-Racial". I believe the first time I had heard it was on Hardball describing Barack Obama's speech about the Rev. Wright controversy and further about Race in America.

I make no claims to understand all of black society. I do not even understand all of white society. I cannot begin to tackle the question of all race relations within the U.S. What follows beneath the fold is one white, middle class college student from Oklahoma musing over the question of white/black relations with lessons from history and a fresh take from this film.

Through his marvelous speech’s title, "A More Perfect Union,"  Barack Obama evoked not only the tragic history of race relations in America, but hinted sublimely at what the unwritten chapters that lie ahead of it may contain.  The heading could be read both as an optimistic creed regarding our country’s future, and as a cynical jab at its heart-achingly slow rate of progress thus far.  Immediately following its historic delivery in Philadelphia, however, few people knew, and even fewer even mentioned, its title.  It quickly became known simply as "the speech."

For all the well-deserved fanfare and talking-head babble, what was the true significance of the speech?  It can be summed up in one word...

First Diary

The race issue has for too long been politely ignored, without the underlying wound(s) being treated.

Therefore:

Here's a Fox News interview with a (white) Catholic priest who supports Rev. Wright by comparing him to Jesus.

What if we took 30-second film clips of Jesus overturning tables in the temple? Or saying you must hate your parents in order to love me? We would have thought him a crazy man.

Well worth watching and spreading:

http://www.foxnews.com/...

40 Years after the MLK Assassination - 40 years after James Brown 'saves Boston." No James Brown Museum!

No James Brown Museum? The Auctioning off of James Brown's historic artifacts is an American Disgrace. Yes, It's an American disgrace.

With so many black millionaires, let see if one of the thousands of black American multi millionaires steps up and saves these items from being sold. This is a family issue, but its a political issue as well. More HERE