FollowI am posting this Blog of my writings and thoughts because I am finally tired, no, exhausted and really, really weary of feeling, thinking and caring about racism in America. Something needs to be said and more importantly something needs to be done. I need an outlet, some closure for my frustration. I fought the good fight in my teens in the 60’s and saw my brothers fight and die in Viet Nam for others’ freedom without having their own. I campaigned for and cheered the election of our first African American president, Barack Hussein Obama, and cringe now when I see him portrayed in negative caricature. I have traveled extensively around the world and have felt the most uncomfortable, anxious and unwanted as a Black person “at home,” in America.
I still have hope for our American humanity. My son and granddaughter have grown up without having or needing the same antennae I possess that project from my head and vibrate as they deftly identify an act of racism whenever it appears. For this I am glad, hopeful, but also concerned for them. They navigate their worlds with optimism, resolve, enthusiasm and hope believing that they can accomplish their dreams/goals based solely upon their talents, skills and education/training. Imagine what a potentially great America we could have if all of our children were allowed to grow to their full potential, and encouraged to contribute unselfishly to the well-being of all of us and our country. What a wonderful world we could experience if we were the model of a morally healthy and productively wealthy citizenry. They give me hope.
Fearfully, however, my travels around the world have suggested to me that the world, where the majority populations are people of color, looks at America more critically and clearly than we do, and they see our inhumanity, insincerity and hypocrisy. We are not universally seen as beacons of moral righteousness. We are too often seen as a bad example of what respect for human individualism and dignity looks like. I fear that as our economy fails from greed, our troops fail from over exposure and our allies tire from unrelenting requirements of treaties, America will fail. I believe that this failure will be due largely to our racist belief of our “racial” superiority over others which fuel our “arrogant” sense of and right to conquest and control. The election of Barack Obama, I believe, has given us some “more time” as many other countries “of color” are waiting to see if we make a change and learn to respect people of other races, colors, ethnicities and religions by treating them as equals. We, Americans, may need to be reminded that they far outnumber us, and that it is they that have and control the resources we must buy and borrow for our own survival.
Our nation’s need for racial equality is but a simple observation that I make. The greater one is that this need is tied to our world survival. It was world opinion and its political backlash that accelerated the push for Civil Rights in the 60’s. The advent of the TV unmercifully showed the beatings of Black children in the streets of the South then. Now the internet makes our business, and our dirty laundry current world news and world business 24/7. Just as the millions in the world simultaneously mourned and celebrated the life of Michael Jackson, a Black man, they are just as connected to other events. The racial attacks on our president, including the September 2009 Face book petition for his assassination potentially scanned the globe.
I suggest that we need to “behave better” in the world arena. The survival of our nation may well depend on it. Racism directed at “people of color” may very well be more now than an internal American problem. It may very well be seen as an international one against “countries and cultures of color,” international racism.