Friday, March 14, 2008

The Horror!

As I drove home this evening, Sean Hannity was playing the unedited Christmas sermon of Jeramiah Wright, Barack Obama's pastor and advisor. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I do not remember ever hearing the shear volume of hate this man preached in his Christmas sermon in my life! I have never ever heard a white bigot with this amount of pure hate. I think I now understand his wife's comment and its origin. But will someone let him know that he will have to be the President of all the people of this country not just those of color.

I have always had a policy, no that's not the right word, practice? No. Habit. I have always had a habit of ignoring race until I was forced to acknowledge it. At the genetic level I am not sure that the taxonomy of race is even on a par with species. A very few minor differences in pigmentation, hair, and facial characteristics. No big deal really. But when my face is rubbed in it, I cannot help but notice.

Race to me had been more about culture. And in that culture, American people of African descent currently do have a very vocal anti-social and misogynistic sub-culture. But by my experience with most people of color, this was an embarrassing sub culture. Generally, I think it is the inexperience of age mixed with music and movies that glorify violence. Based on the Adults I encounter on a daily basis, I had presumed that we were finally making headway into becoming a society where people really were judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin; and that this sub-culture of sociopathic juveniles was a source of major disappointment to their parents who had aspirations of their children achieving even more than they did.

Up to this point I was worried about Barack Obama's reputation as the most liberal member of the U. S. Senate. That was then. Now as I hear his wife, and Dr. Wright, his pastor and spiritual adviser of twenty years, I realize that there is little chance he can be immune from their venom and hatred of America and in particular the white race. Since he is the presumptive candidate and therefore almost certainly our next President, I find myself wondering where this is going to lead.

Is his Presidency going to unite the country? Will he show all the minorities of this country that by working hard, being responsible, and making good decisions they can accomplish anything?
Or will he be President of the Black people in some sort of bizarre competitive sport that finally rends our society irreconcilably?

1 comment:

clzuhde said...

Having heard the rantings of this 'preacher' over the past few days on the news (I am seriously surprised it has made it to other networks other than FOX, with the exception of Glenn Beck on CNN/HLN))has only helped to cement in my mind the faction out there who seems to WANT to keep their people hateful and 'down'. In doing so they keep the issue of racism alive and well, and out in the face of everyone, making an issue over the very thing they tell the rest of the world they do NOT want to be an issue. In otherwords, it justifies the existance of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the likes. I often wonder what Martin Luther King would feel about this?