Forward

I received an email from one of my readers who requested that I post his personal feelings about the issue of race in America today. The poster goes by the screen name of BigPapa. He is one who is from the generation of post civil rights and his essay takes a look at the recent debate over race in this era of political maneuvering.

What is it about this race issue for Obama and Clinton? Why are Democrats so beholden to it and why is it so prevalent 40+ years after civil rights? Why are we letting new generations take hold of racism?

I’m what you call Average American Joe. I’m a 38 year old white, Christian Conservative and a gun owner.   When I was a child I grew up in a household where the N word was not used nor was racism tolerated. For all the flaws of my parents may have had, like any other parents, one was not racism. Do I have prejudices? Yes I do and anyone who says they don’t is a damn liar. Recognizing those prejudices and working through them is what makes us better.

My Mom and Dad never uttered the N word.   As a young child I came home and asked them one day what that meant having heard it in school. They taught me it was a bad thing just as any other insult is. They also made sure I knew the history surrounding this word and why it was especially bad.

In my elementary school we had one or two black children form 1^st through 6th grade. You could say I grew up in a lily white area since it was rural at the time. When I entered junior high in the 7^th grade it combined two elementary schools and the other one had a lot of black kids.   Some of the white kids showed their true colors and some of these black kids showed their true colors too. This was confusing to me and it troubled me having a sense of always wanting to do the right thing and apply the golden rule. For the first time in my life I experienced reverse racism.(I didn’t know it at the time) I didn’t understand why these black kids treated me like they did. Not all of them, but many exhibited the same behavior as some as my white peers.

Somehow I soldiered through either using my own logic or knowledge gained from my parents. I knew people that were racists and I just ignored their ignorance and stupidity. The way I looked at is there were stupid hateful people of all colors around the world. As a child and even now I was a history buff and I think my statement above can be proven by history.

As I entered the workforce I experienced this reverse racism again and again. I have always been one to make friends with anyone of any race or creed. When Michelle Obama talks about this mean country I think where the hell has she been? I wasn’t Ivy League educated; I don’t make nearly a million dollars a year as she has in this mean country.  What does that make her?

As I got near my 30’s I started working at a politically correct company which is kind of a pain in the rear, but at the same time I have met and worked with wonderful professional people of all races , all backgrounds, and from all over the world. Once I became the supervisor of my department the first time I hired anyone it was a black man from Haiti who was a US citizen and his wife is a woman from Botswana who already worked here in another department. They are two of the nicest people I have ever met. He can tell you some stuff about how he perceives American blacks, but those would be his words. This is a guy who spoke no English when he arrived here in 1994 but he learned how. He went back to school to get a different degree than the one he got in Haiti.   He didn’t let the mean evil United States keep him down. 

All these years being Average white man I’ve tried to do the right thing by judging people by their personality and talent and not their color.  But, I know now that race is still a big issue. Most people I work with don’t worry about this stuff. We treat everyone as individuals. In the nine years at my present place of employment, I have never heard anyone white utter anything racist. On the other hand I knew of two black women (who no longer work here) that were probably the most racist blacks I have personally met.  Both were urban activists and locked into the notion that racism is and always will be a battle. Yes, it very well may be a battle but at what cost?

I cannot imagine my pastor speaking in the manner of Wright in any way shape or form. The two pastors at my church are not peace pushers, but they are not racial bigots like Wright.   My church alone does community service for all races all over other parts of the world like Africa, South America, and contributed to the people of New Orleans. I have helped deliver groceries that our church collected to people of other races. Where is the mean spirit?

Don’t push your racism onto me and the American public Reverend Wright, or Michelle and B. Hussein Obama. You sat in that church for 20 year making fat money listening to crazy old uncle Jeremiah hate everyone including the very America that gave him the right to speak like a filthy old sailor.

In this day and age, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan have no place just as David Duke or Neo Nazi skin heads have no place.

I’ll go back to what I said above as my ending statement on race baiters of all kinds. Wright and Farrakhan, KKK, Skin Heads, YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME.