Thought for the Day: Continuing Epidemic of Race
September 2nd 2009 14:39
It's funny how no matter how far we come as a country, no matter how many advancements we make in racial relations, race is always going to be a dividing factor in the United States of America. Even with an African American in office as President, we still have major issues with race. It seems even more so stressed now that certain groups fear their rights will be threatened or taken away altogether because someone from an oppressed race is now in the highest office of the land. Some Republican pundits have said it so eloquently that 'the President has a grudge against the MAN (the white establishment that is for those who aren't familiar with the connotation of the MAN) and is out to destroy him in any way possible'. Now, the MAN has been mostly in charge of this country for hundreds of years. Any grudges he's had against other races might manifest itself in different shapes and forms of socio-economic status and rights, etc...But I have yet to see any particular races completely obliterated or returned to physical enslavement.
Why are people, and I could say specifically white people (but I don't want to generalize an epidemic that is far spread beyond just white people) so afraid that a black man has now become somehow a new THE MAN 2.0? Why are soo many people afraid that a black man with power is somehow a frightening dictator in disguise? Why are soo many people afraid that he will inflict upon them what their ancestors probably inflicted upon his hundreds of years ago hundreds of years later, and maybe not for revenge, but maybe just for shits and giggles? I don't really know why I can just guess that guilt coupled with fear or maybe just total racial ignorance could be at fault. Guilt for those who know and recognize their prejudices and bigotry, have relished in it, have embraced it, and have proliferated it for the whole span of their and their kids lifetimes, but don't find anything wrong with it? Fear that a minority group with such a history in this country of racial injustice and discrimination might actually decide to rise up and avenge all the wrongs done to them as an entire race and put whitey in a place of subservience?
As thrilling and chilling and maybe angering as those two options sound, hopefully they are not the truth behind this epidemic of racial reaction. I think the real reason is racial ignorance with fear sprinkled in. Racial ignorance meaning, as a country, we've become accustomed to having a white male in a position of power, that now that younger generations of Americans are embracing the fact that it's time to break away from the norm and move into a 'new' norm of positions of power being held by someone other than just white males. I think people are afraid that too much change might lead to too much equality that might lead to too much United in the States of America. Change is a difficult thing for most people to deal with and accept when they've become comfortable and set in their way of thinking, acting, and living.
If we're acting this way with an African American man as President, I just can't begin to imagine what would happen if we ever have a woman, black or white, as President! I guess men would start screaming and embracing reverse sexism, LOL!
If we're acting this way with an African American man as President, I just can't begin to imagine what would happen if we ever have a woman, black or white, as President! I guess men would start screaming and embracing reverse sexism, LOL!
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