The Albatross of Race

Throughout the history of the United States, the issue of race has been at times our undoing or our unifying factor in helping bring about the process of change in our society. To this day, the motif of race evokes certain emotions in all of us. It often goes unaddressed due to the stances taken from different sides of the conversation. The lack of comfort can be attributed to the lack of education we have about other cultures. Race, creed and color are three things that continue to define all of us much to our chagrin.


Race is looming larger in growing political debates across the country regarding many sectors of our everyday lives. The usual suspects of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin among others chimed in with their virulent, separatist rhetoric regarding these issues. They all have one thing in common, they love hearing their voices all over various media outlets and having nothing of consequence to back up their statements. On immigration reform, the former maverick John McCain who once stated during a televised 2008 presidential debate “the United States is still that shiny city upon a hill where everyone is welcome.” But in a recent 2010 campaign ad for his reelection campaign in Arizona he is seen with a police officer stating that we will finish the damned fence. This is a direct correlation to the fence being built in Arizona keep illegal Mexicans from crossing the border.


Jan Brewer, the interim governor of Arizona struck an accord with her party but not nationally when she signed into law the SB 1070 bill. The law essentially creates unprecedented parameters to allow racial profiling on levels never seen in the United States. The bill reeked of remnants from the apartheid system in South Africa and reconstruction era policies held up in the Southern states after the Civil War. It has allowed Blacks and Hispanics to rally in a unified fashion to fight against this racist law. The fallout from this legislation being passed is almost assured to go the Supreme Court to get a final ruling to see if it will be struck down or upheld.

In Texas, the State Board of Education has decided to rewrite history. Their desire is to demount Thurgood Marshall’s influence and him from the Supreme Court in their textbooks. They’ve also called on removing the term Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade’ and replacing it with the ‘Atlantic Triangular Trade,’ which will undoubtedly minimize the impact that the slave trade had on the United States. What makes this an enormous problem is 75 percent of textbooks for grades K-12 that are bought and produced around the country are from Texas. It makes Texas the second largest buyer of textbooks behind the state of California.


This wretched assault on our history has the potential to become a catastrophic brainwashing of our next generation. In Arizona, their government is strongly considering banning Ethnic Studies at their state colleges and universities fearing that what is being taught in these classes are anti-American. It’s blatantly apparent Texas and Arizona are trying to one-up the other when it comes to setting the country back to the 1950s. Governor Rick Parry – Texas threatened secession from the United States during his election campaign and State Senator Russell Pearce – Arizona has strong Neo Nazi affiliations and their constituents are blindly loyal, which poses another problem entirely.


Since taking office in January, Governor Bob McDonnell and his attorney general Ken Cuchinelli have done their damnedest to set the state of Virginia back to the days of Jim Crow. Their assault on the previous administration’s groundbreaking legislation has been indefensible to say the very least. The fact they purposely left out slavery when Gov. McDonnell revealed his proclamation to make April Confederate History Month was troubling. The half hearted apology they issued made evident their true agenda of turning the clock back. This was only one in a series of missteps by this administration.


It is clear the country as a whole is sick and tired of the same old partisan politics going on in the halls of Congress. Many stalwart incumbents in the House and Senate have been dismissed by their constituents due to their perceived ineffectiveness during their time in Congress. This next election cycle has both Democrats and Republicans worried. The Tea Party and extreme militia movements have been a barometer for the disappointment and anger towards our government. Many proponents representing these movements will say that their cause is justified because of their worry over defense, immigration, and the outlandish governmental spending. Others view the movements as spectacles of privileged, middle-class and poor whites refusing to be told what to do by a Black President.


Tea Party candidate Rand Paul from Kentucky has stormed onto the national scene like a category 5 hurricane. His comments regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and the criticism of President Obama’s besmirching of BP and their culpability in the cleanup of their massive oil spill left him back peddling faster than an NFL cornerback. Paul is under the impression that we still reside in the 1940s. Although, he later retracted his statements and said he would have voted for the historic Civil Rights bill, he is yet another example of how the issue of race keeps rearing its head in the political discourse of this country.


The latest incidents citing race happened in South Carolina when Rep. State Senator Jake Knotts referred to gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and President Barack Obama as ‘ragheads.’ ‘Raghead’ is a racial slur geared towards a person of Indian descent. Perhaps, the biggest racial incident of 2010 besides the Oscar Grant trial verdict, occurred this week when former USDA administrator, Shirley Sherrod was fired supposedly over racist remarks in a speech she gave at an NAACP event in 2008 about not delivering monetary assistance to a white rural farmer. This clip was provided by right wing extremist Andrew Breitbart and little did everyone know that the clip was edited and distorted to make Mrs. Sherrod appear as a racist. But after viewing the footage in its entirety, she was telling a heart wrenching story about how her perception of race changed during this exchange with this poor, white farmer. Everyone from the Obama administration to the major media news outlets were culpable in throwing her under the bus before understanding the full scope of the situation. Every week, this disturbing trend continues to reappear into our national conscience.


But the albatross of race is still hanging around the country like a storm cloud. It makes one wonder if we’ll ever address it or if we’ll keep letting it rain until we drown in our own dysfunction.


“A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.” – Dr. Cornel West