House of Eratosthenes

The Associated Press has finally come up with an answer to that most awkward of questions: How come a nation with a black President has an Affirmative Action program in place? At all?

Because racism persists, that’s why.

The day after Barack Obama was elected president, Kari Fulton heard a white colleague proclaim that racism in America is dead.

She cringed, worrying that it might be a sign of flagging interest in the fight against discrimination.

“In reality, racism is still very much alive and well,” said Fulton, who graduated last year from Howard University, a historically black college in the nation’s capital.

Warner Todd Huston at Stop The ACLU is having none of it:

And how does young Kari know this? At 23 she never lived through Jim Crow. She doesn’t remember the days when there were few blacks on TV and blacks in music were segregated to separate genres, not mixing with white singers. She wasn’t around when black CEOs didn’t exist and no blacks roamed the halls of Congress or the White House without pushing a broom. So, how does this 23-year-old girl know that “racism is alive and well”? Because she is a black activist, that’s why.

Well, I wouldn’t bet a lot of money that racism has been banished forever. Sure, it’s still around…in the same way all kinds & types of other prejudices are still around. Blacks are lazy, religious people are mean and nasty, men wage wars on other men because they get some kind of sexual thrill out of it, Republicans represent the interests of the greedy corporate types — those are all prejudices that persist in the minds of the intellectually lazy. They’re all still around.

I notice something else a little peculiar about this.

If, before anyone seriously thought of electing Barack Obama President, I were to step out in the limelight and say “the purpose of the modern black civil rights movement is to control what people think” — well, the first thing that would happen would be that I’d be punished. Lose my job, lose my career, lose whatever anyone can take away from me…probably not go to jail, but a lot of folks would want me to.

Point is, what I had just said, would be denied. By many. Eagerly.

No, no, no, they’d say, the point of it is to help out people who are caught in the bottom layers of society solely because of the color of their skin. To give them help, since they can’t advance any other way. You’ve got it all wrong, it’s not about controlling what people think.

Now the advancement is complete.

We’ve got a black President.

And whatever was militant before He was elected, has to stay just as militant after He is sworn in…not because it’s impossible for people to advance if their skin is the wrong color…but because racism persists.

Somewhere.

So, it always was about controlling what people think. The movement must endure because some people have racist thoughts in their heads.

I hope it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, with all the excitement ahead of us, what an incredibly weak argument this really is. Some people have racist thoughts. Yeah. Some people…eat their own feces. Name something, and whatever it is, I can find “some people” who think it.

That doesn’t mean we should set aside jobs for people of a certain skin color — in the same breath as bragging about how color-blind we are, lying to ourselves and everyone in earshot.

Someone with her whole life ahead of her, who’s worked so hard to associate her worth as a person with black-activism, heard “racism is dead” — and she didn’t like it. She represents, perhaps, millions of others who have the same concerns. Their medication has passed the point of becoming an addiction. If you don’t see that as a red flag, there is something wrong with you.

I hope it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, with all the excitement ahead of us, what an incredibly weak argument this really is. Some people have racist thoughts. Yeah. Some people…eat their own feces. Name something, and whatever it is, I can find “some people” who think it.

Excellent obervation, young Jedi. Spot on, really. Cheerio! (ok, so I’m in a wierd mood.. but it’s still a good point.)
- philmon | 11/30/2008 @ 23:41

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Racism Persists!Sunday, November 30th, 2008

Racism Persists!
Sunday, November 30th, 2008