Race and the race

Obama-as-monkey; Powell as racist because he’s endorsed a fellow black man; (white) small towns as the only “real” America; the economy collapsing because Fannie Mae lent too much money to minority householders; Obama dolls found hanging in effigy; and all the while all too many McCain supporters keep on denying that their campaign’s feeding on racism (while some, to their credit, speak out against it).

But you have to turn the clock back a long way to put it all in perspective.  People say the Civil War was a tragedy, but the real tragedy was the failure of Reconstruction.  The Union should have kept its boot on the South until it cracked, and the KKK should have been throttled with its own umbilical cord.  Consider:  in the early 1870s, a majority of the Mississippi and South Carolina state legislatures were black, and the former state was sending black Senators to Congress.  For a tantalizing moment, a new political/social order seemed to be in reach.  A hundred and thirty years later, we’re still living with the consequences of our failure to attain it.

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2 Responses to “Race and the race”

  1. j.k.k Says:

    Ignorance begets racism. Indoctrination promotes ignorance. The cycle is vicious.

    We have a sleeping dragon in our midst. We have a rather large religious group brainwashing children from an early age to follow blindly the word of God without question. We have a within the borders of our country, a group of radical fundamentalists who, like all other radicals, see not their own extremism.

    Everything we learn, for the most part, is shaped by our parents. When a parent tells their child to respect others first and leads by example, that child grows up to be an adult with the same ideals, no matter what religious affiliation they may be. When a child grows up in an abusive household, you find that this child grows up to be an angry, abusive and maladjusted adult. So too will a child believe that the only way to save the world is to eliminate non-Christians or non-Muslims or non-GreenSkinnedScalyThings, so long as that is how they are raised.

    The dragon in our midst is beginning to rouse. His eyelids have spread open and the flames within have been stoked. Though it may be a bit early for the dragon to completely dominate, it can surely fracture the land and the rights and the wills of sensible people. The dragon has laid many eggs. It has been breeding and sewing the seeds of a New World Order based on Dominionist principles.

    We may have a juggernaut rolling down a hill from on high. The more fearsome aspect being that these people believe with every ounce of their body that they’re right and rarely if ever do they question their fellows. They fight for one another as if joining together in prayer was the sole piece of evidence needed for righteousness. When an established leader says something, the rest follow en masse.

    My greatest hope is that Obama will be elected. My greatest wish is that he’ll be a unifier and be allowed to do what it takes to bring us back down from our perch. The creeping feeling in my gut says that if he’s elected, every fundamentalist in this country will feel inspired to never let him succeed in leading us somewhere new and fresh. My gut tells me that this election will mark the change in tides for our country.

    And as the water recedes and the rocks are exposed, the last vestiges of hope will form small pools which will be dried up by the harsh Sun.

  2. David Williams Says:

    Agreed. Xtn fundamentalism believes in an imminent last judgment, and neglects this world for the sake of an imaginary one. Jesus (who I suspect was a pretty mellow/visionary guy) would be appalled at the death-cult that a lot of his followers have turned into.