Are You Helping To End Racism?

A truer statement has never been said.

I thought this piece, on Daily Kos yesterday, was awesome:

There are people who believe that racism is as American as apple pie.

I’m one of them.

There are others who live in the delusion that we are approaching, or living in a “post-racial” society.

I beg to differ.

It should be patently clear to anyone who just went through the trauma of one of the most racially vituperative presidential elections in recent history that racism hasn’t magically dissolved into the ether. Doubtful it will get better in the next four years if the millions of racists in this country have anything to say about it.

It really isn’t about racist politicians. They are only a symptom of the disease. They got elected by the racists who voted for them. Those same racists will be voting in the next election.

We have a black president for the second time. That has done little to diminish the outpouring of racial hatred here, and in some ways it has only inflamed it.

This is no time to do a victory dance where racism is concerned. It is however, time to ask a serious question.

What are you doing to stop racism?

Since a majority of people in the U.S. think of themselves as “white,” I’ll address this question to those who are part of that socially constructed group.

According to the 2010 census there are 196,817,552 (63.7%) of people in the U.S. who are classified as “white people.” They are not Latinos or African American, Asian or Native American.

But let me narrow it down quite a bit more.

When I look at a headline like this: “Eighty-Eight Percent of Romney Voters Were White,” I’m not talking to those whites. This is addressed to the 56 percent of whites who voted for President Obama.

To narrow it even further, this is really a plea to those white people who consider themselves to be progressive. I have no idea what percentage of that 56 percent think of themselves in those terms.

But if you are one of them, this is written to you. You have to become part of an anti-racism vanguard.

Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans didn’t make this a racist country. Not one of these groups has the power to maintain systemic racial inequality. Before you can overturn 400 years of racism built into the foundations of this nation, you have to first change those who keep the system in place.

Read more of this thought-provoking piece here.

Racists Can’t Touch Whitney Houston

The greatest singer of all.

I have written before how while the Internet is a great tool for connecting to people one might otherwise never have met, and learning many new perspectives, it is also the place for extreme ugliness and bigotry. There’s something about the anonymity of the world wide web that brings out the racists in droves. It has gotten to a point where when Yahoo posts a story that features a Black person, for any reason, I can bet that in the comments section racist crap is going to be there. Try it yourself and you will see what I mean.

The latest Internet racist idiocy comes from of all things, news about the death of Pop icon, Whitney Houston. As reported by the site Daily Kos, one article on Houston’s death featured some of the following comments:

A tragedy is when someones passes away from a terminal disease or something else that no one saw coming.Whitney is just an inferior lo w life ni gg er that needed to go,no tragedy,no loss.
[…]

Any death is a tragedy you heartless bástard.

[…]

not nignogs their death is a plus

[…]

SHe couldn’t even sell issues of “the national enquirer” anymore. Everyone was tired of the TNB. Niqqer flaps her lips and screeches, niqqer becomes rich. Niqqer ends up nearly broke after spending all of her money. Niqqer in constant fights and drug binges. Niqqer ODs when she learns she’s nearly broke and she is so wasted physically she can’t make another album. Niqqer hit the end of the road, niqqer thinking and niqqer behavior led her to where she had nothing. She couldn’t face life without the “bling bling”, she knew she would never have any more “kaching kaching”

[…]

I am now patiently waiting for the grand messiah Obama to have a blk fundraiser in honor of Whitley with Kevin Costner as guest of honor with all the Hollywood elites invited along with Alan Colmes, Al Sharpton, Jeremia Wright, Charles Rangel, etc. with a menu featuring blk eyed peas, grits, Imported Kobe steak, Dom Perignon, sweet potato pie and a mus lll im scarf as a momento of this great occasion.

Of course the door prize will be an all expense paid trip to Kenya to visit the Obama tribe and birthplace of his ancestors while the American people still look for this imposter’s birth certificate in Hawaii !!!

Wow. I don’t know what to even say about this kind of ugliness. You just need to know for all of us forward-thinking people, there are still a bunch of neanderthals walking the streets.

Here is a link to the full article.