On Race in America

I watched the Obama speech yesterday and hoped to hear something new. I wanted him to explain how he could spend 20 years in a church which appears to be at least partly based upon hating white people. I wanted him to explain it in a way that made sense.

What he said was the same old tired excuse I’ve heard given for every racist to whom I’ve ever been subjected to listening. “He grew up in a different time. He’s speaking his anger at his own experience as a _____ man in America.” You can fill in the blank with any race or ethnicity you choose. The excuse is the same, the hatred is the same. It does not matter who the racist happens to be; it should never be acceptable. The level of hatred spewing forth from Rev. Wright is identical to the hatred I hear in the speeches of the skinheads I see on the news.

Mr. Obama compared the rhetoric of his preacher to the comment by his elderly white grandmother that sometimes when she walks by black men on the street she’s afraid. Guess what? So am I. I don’t think that fear makes us racist; I think it makes us human and female. First of all, Barack seems to misunderstand what is a fact for every woman in America namely that the biggest threat we face is from men. It’s a statistical fact, look it up. I am not always afraid of black men, and am rarely afraid of other ethnic groups, not because of the color of my skin but because of the hatred, animosity and contempt that is evident in the way I am glared at and the threatening motions they make towards myself and my children. While his grandmother may be a racist, I’ve never met her so I don’t know, she may also just be a frightened old lady who her grandson has just defamed on national television for his own political gains. Nice.

As a 30-something year old white woman, I am tired of this dialogue on race. We are told that racism is still a reality and that we need to talk this out, but my apathy and boredom have long since overtaken my interest in the subject. I get it already. Those of us with white skin are the bad guys and everyone else wins. Can we move on already? You get to be proud of who you are and I don’t. You get a month devoted to studying your cultural heritage and my children don’t. You get to call me ethnic slurs, physically threaten myself and my children, laugh at my fear, and I am not allowed to respond. If I do speak up, you get to call me racist, and I’m supposed to shut up right then and hang my head in shame and apologize. I get it. You win. Happy now?

Those of us in our 20s and 30s in white America have been beat to death with the specter of the “Evil White Man.” We were raised on the notions of ethnic and racial equality and whole-heartedly embrace the notion that people are people and skin color, or eye shape, or the shape of your nose, etc. have no bearing on who you are We agree with you. We would gladly tar and feather anyone we heard promoting these ideas in our own communities. Have you ever watched a modern day Klan rally? Ever notice how most of the white folks there are yelling AT the Klan instead of with it? Anything we say on the subject of our country’s racial history is taken as further proof of our perfidy. I heard a girl in college explaining in a Minority Studies class about how her family had run two stops on the Underground Railroad. She offered this up as proof that while there were indeed slave owners in this country, there were also good white people working and risking their lives to bring an end to this horrible institution. The professor listened to the whole thing, nodded his head sagely, and then asked her, “And how many people did they own before that?” She couldn’t win. She was white and therefore by definition a descendant of slave owners, she was part of “the Man” bent on keeping black people down.

So, Mr. Obama, let me tell you what those of us in middle class white America see as the racial situation in our country. We live in neighborhoods with black neighbors, we work in jobs with people of every nationality, when we get together with our friends from college it looks like a mini-meeting of the United Nations. We have friends who celebrate Kwanzaa and Ramadan and Passover as well as Chinese New Year and any other ethnic celebration you can name and we are delighted when we get invited to the parties. We would never think of using the N- word, but understand that it’s okay for you to do so. We get it. All the things that Dr. King dreamed about in his famous speech, we dream about, too. We all know at least one person who lost out on a job, a scholarship, a promotion because of the fairness of their skin, and while we resent like hell this legalized discrimination against us, we simply resolve to work harder and be the better candidate next time and pray for a day when Affirmative Action is no longer necessary. And so, we are shocked and hurt to hear you defend this man who impugns our character, to lift up a man who delights in smearing our collective good name. All through the beginning of your campaign, I listened to people say that you seemed condescending to white voters, and I hoped that they were wrong. It would seem that they were not. Unfortunately for you, a good test of a man’s character is to look at the company he keeps. You, Mr. Obama, hang out with racists. I don’t know if you are one, but you certainly appear to be tolerant of them, which my political correctness training tells me is the same thing.

So, this November, I will be voting for the white guy. It has nothing to do with the fact that we have the same color skin, but that you and I don’t and that I fear that that is a big deal to YOU.