Today is indeed a historic day. That the same country that only 50 years ago would not allow people with darker colored skin (for that is indeed the only difference) to eat at the same counter, use the same restroom, drink from the same fountain as those with lighter colored skin, would now elect to the highest position of government a black man, is proof of many things: the grace of God, the triumph of the human spirit, and the conquering power of the truth.
It is also, very importantly, proof of the incredible speed at which our culture changes itself, a speed that is difficult to measure or even see while one is living it. Only ten years ago, our national culture was still so conservative in its morals that when Ellen Degeneres “came out” on her tv show, the nation was in an uproar. It has taken less than ten years for the culture to reach the point that homosexual characters on television are a common occurrence, in fact, almost a “given” for any ensemble show. They certainly do not even raise an eyebrow now, even from those who were formerly so incensed.
I use this example of the speed at which our culture changes because I have seen the lack of appreciation for this phenomenon appear most detrimentally when it applies to race relations. I was born in the south in the mid 70’s. I have lived all my life in cities with a higher concentration of black people than L.A. My parents, who doubtless had some learned prejudicial behaviors, knew how not to pass those along to their children. Growing up, I was aware that this method of operating was very obviously the way to eradicate unfair and unjust preconceptions about classes of people. It was so incredibly obvious to me that I thought everyone would surely be aware of it.
The method is this: each generation of parents, realizing that they themselves have some measure, however small, of prejudicial opinions smothers those opinions around their children. They guard their tongues and measure their actions. My parents may well have thought that a black lawyer would not be as good as a white lawyer (although I do not actually believe that they did), but they would never express that opinion to me. In fact, the way to wipe out prejudice is to not talk about it—to act as if it is a thing that used to happen, but has no place in today’s enlightened society. In this way, the succeeding generation has fewer prejudicial opinions, that generation uses the same method with their children, their children have fewer prejudicial feelings, etc. until prejudice is as ancient a practice as wearing powdered wigs.
My frustration with this day, which should be a celebration of how far we have come, is that the people who are given the mic are dead set on talking about how oppressed they are. Imagine this: a woman is elected CEO of the most important business in America. Her opposing nominee for the spot was an older white man. In her first state of the company speech, she talks about how much work they have to do to shatter the glass ceiling, to make clear the way of women to join their place beside men, to work for the day when women will not be given a back seat. If you yourself do not see the absurdity of this, you may stop reading now. Your intellectual level is below what I will be able to influence.
When Denzel Washington and Halle Barry won their Oscars the same year, their acceptance speeches illustrated very clearly the difference in the right way and the wrong way to further the black cause. Halle (who could only be called a light mocha color and is possibly one of the most beautiful women in the world) talked about all the women before her who were oppressed and how great it was that “every faceless, nameless woman of color now has a chance because tonight the door has been opened”. This is a logical fallacy. If it were necessary for a black woman to win the Oscar in order for black women to have an opportunity to win an Oscar, then no black woman would ever win an Oscar. Who was the black woman that won an Oscar that opened the door for Halle to win an Oscar? In stark contrast, Denzel says “I just wanted to be the best actor I could be”. Notice he doesn’t say the best “black” actor. That’s the difference. People who are truly interested in repairing the damage done by prejudice are interested in mending the divide, not making it permanent. What we should be working towards is the goal that gradually there is no conscious difference between people with varying shades of skin color.
I remember hearing one famous black person being interviewed a long time ago. I can’t remember who it was, but he said that when he was a little boy, his grandmother set him down at the kitchen table with his crayons. She poured them out on the table and said something like, “that’s it… that’s what all the fuss is about… that’s what it all comes down to… just the colors in a crayon box.” I firmly believe that the early civil rights leaders, those who did the hard work, who had the courage to civilly disobey to spur justice, would be spinning in their graves if they knew what the black leaders today were doing with the freedom early activists had acquired by their sacrifice. I think of little Rosa Parks, and the argument she must have had with herself in her mind before she refused to move to the back of the bus. Those early leaders were working towards equality, towards a day when no difference was seen.
This brings me back to my point about the speed at which change happens in our society. While you are living the change, you don’t notice it happening, but you should be able to look back at where you were and measure the change. For instance, the acceptance for homosexual characters on tv was gradual. We didn’t wake up the week after Ellen’s show and say, “hey, I have a great idea for a tv show, we’ll call it ‘The L Word’ and it’ll be all about lesbians”. No, Ellen went on for a while, then got canceled. Will and Grace became a big hit. Gradually more and more homosexual characters made their way onto our tv screens—gradually enough that it didn’t seem that much different than the day before.
This is the way most change happens. Like gaining 50 pounds--while you are living it, it’s difficult to see the growth. No one wakes up one morning and is shocked to see a 50 pound gain overnight. Yesterday I was wearing a size 4, today I can’t fit in my husband’s 40 waist jeans. No, an insignificant amount every day adds up to big gains over the long haul.
What I don’t understand is why today’s black leaders don’t see this. Or maybe they do, that is an argument as well and we’ll get to that. It’s shameful that a man that calls himself a Christian and is a reverend by trade (specifically Rev. Joseph E. Lowery) could pray to our Lord at this morning’s inauguration:
It is also, very importantly, proof of the incredible speed at which our culture changes itself, a speed that is difficult to measure or even see while one is living it. Only ten years ago, our national culture was still so conservative in its morals that when Ellen Degeneres “came out” on her tv show, the nation was in an uproar. It has taken less than ten years for the culture to reach the point that homosexual characters on television are a common occurrence, in fact, almost a “given” for any ensemble show. They certainly do not even raise an eyebrow now, even from those who were formerly so incensed.
I use this example of the speed at which our culture changes because I have seen the lack of appreciation for this phenomenon appear most detrimentally when it applies to race relations. I was born in the south in the mid 70’s. I have lived all my life in cities with a higher concentration of black people than L.A. My parents, who doubtless had some learned prejudicial behaviors, knew how not to pass those along to their children. Growing up, I was aware that this method of operating was very obviously the way to eradicate unfair and unjust preconceptions about classes of people. It was so incredibly obvious to me that I thought everyone would surely be aware of it.
The method is this: each generation of parents, realizing that they themselves have some measure, however small, of prejudicial opinions smothers those opinions around their children. They guard their tongues and measure their actions. My parents may well have thought that a black lawyer would not be as good as a white lawyer (although I do not actually believe that they did), but they would never express that opinion to me. In fact, the way to wipe out prejudice is to not talk about it—to act as if it is a thing that used to happen, but has no place in today’s enlightened society. In this way, the succeeding generation has fewer prejudicial opinions, that generation uses the same method with their children, their children have fewer prejudicial feelings, etc. until prejudice is as ancient a practice as wearing powdered wigs.
My frustration with this day, which should be a celebration of how far we have come, is that the people who are given the mic are dead set on talking about how oppressed they are. Imagine this: a woman is elected CEO of the most important business in America. Her opposing nominee for the spot was an older white man. In her first state of the company speech, she talks about how much work they have to do to shatter the glass ceiling, to make clear the way of women to join their place beside men, to work for the day when women will not be given a back seat. If you yourself do not see the absurdity of this, you may stop reading now. Your intellectual level is below what I will be able to influence.
When Denzel Washington and Halle Barry won their Oscars the same year, their acceptance speeches illustrated very clearly the difference in the right way and the wrong way to further the black cause. Halle (who could only be called a light mocha color and is possibly one of the most beautiful women in the world) talked about all the women before her who were oppressed and how great it was that “every faceless, nameless woman of color now has a chance because tonight the door has been opened”. This is a logical fallacy. If it were necessary for a black woman to win the Oscar in order for black women to have an opportunity to win an Oscar, then no black woman would ever win an Oscar. Who was the black woman that won an Oscar that opened the door for Halle to win an Oscar? In stark contrast, Denzel says “I just wanted to be the best actor I could be”. Notice he doesn’t say the best “black” actor. That’s the difference. People who are truly interested in repairing the damage done by prejudice are interested in mending the divide, not making it permanent. What we should be working towards is the goal that gradually there is no conscious difference between people with varying shades of skin color.
I remember hearing one famous black person being interviewed a long time ago. I can’t remember who it was, but he said that when he was a little boy, his grandmother set him down at the kitchen table with his crayons. She poured them out on the table and said something like, “that’s it… that’s what all the fuss is about… that’s what it all comes down to… just the colors in a crayon box.” I firmly believe that the early civil rights leaders, those who did the hard work, who had the courage to civilly disobey to spur justice, would be spinning in their graves if they knew what the black leaders today were doing with the freedom early activists had acquired by their sacrifice. I think of little Rosa Parks, and the argument she must have had with herself in her mind before she refused to move to the back of the bus. Those early leaders were working towards equality, towards a day when no difference was seen.
This brings me back to my point about the speed at which change happens in our society. While you are living the change, you don’t notice it happening, but you should be able to look back at where you were and measure the change. For instance, the acceptance for homosexual characters on tv was gradual. We didn’t wake up the week after Ellen’s show and say, “hey, I have a great idea for a tv show, we’ll call it ‘The L Word’ and it’ll be all about lesbians”. No, Ellen went on for a while, then got canceled. Will and Grace became a big hit. Gradually more and more homosexual characters made their way onto our tv screens—gradually enough that it didn’t seem that much different than the day before.
This is the way most change happens. Like gaining 50 pounds--while you are living it, it’s difficult to see the growth. No one wakes up one morning and is shocked to see a 50 pound gain overnight. Yesterday I was wearing a size 4, today I can’t fit in my husband’s 40 waist jeans. No, an insignificant amount every day adds up to big gains over the long haul.
What I don’t understand is why today’s black leaders don’t see this. Or maybe they do, that is an argument as well and we’ll get to that. It’s shameful that a man that calls himself a Christian and is a reverend by trade (specifically Rev. Joseph E. Lowery) could pray to our Lord at this morning’s inauguration:
We ask you to help us work for that day
When black will not be asked to get back
When brown can stick around
When yellow will be mellow
When the red man can get ahead man
And when white will embrace what is right.
Shameful. Inexcusable. Sensational. Selfish. Self-indulgent. Sinful. Wasteful.
When in the last decade has ANY black man or woman been asked to get back (one assumes to the back of the bus). Who is shooing away these “brown people”? Who is KEEPING the yellow people from being mellow? Who is standing in the way of the “red man”? And most importantly, self-righteous “Rev.” Lowery asks “when will the white man embrace what is right”?
When in the last decade has ANY black man or woman been asked to get back (one assumes to the back of the bus). Who is shooing away these “brown people”? Who is KEEPING the yellow people from being mellow? Who is standing in the way of the “red man”? And most importantly, self-righteous “Rev.” Lowery asks “when will the white man embrace what is right”?
Please explain to me how Barack Obama got elected if white people didn't vote for him. The very fact that this day is occurring should be proof that the majority of white americans don't have an issue with race. Further, almost ALL of the white Americans that didn't vote for him didn't do so because he's an extreme liberal/bordering on socialist. His skin color had nothing to do with it. (In fact, I have often wondered just how angry some black people would be if they could look inside our minds and could see how little most white people care about what color they are.)
I firmly believe Rev. Lowery will have to answer to God for the words he wasted on the national platform, when he could have been calling the country to hit its knees and pray for a return to morals, righteousness, and justice, when he could have been praying for the Lord to help his country mend its racial divide and see each other as brothers and equals, to give Obama and the senate and Supreme Court divine wisdom to make the tough and unpopular decisions that must be made in order for this country to survive.
Furthermore, I believe that if MLK (who Rev. Lowery worked beside early in the civil rights movement) were here, he would say to Rev. Lowery, “What happened to you? This is not what we wanted.”
This brings us to the question of why? Why do the black leaders of today insist on pounding that wedge between the divide even harder? Any semi-educated person can answer this and I have had enough of this frustration for today. I am exasperated with the lack of critical thinking and objectivity shown so frequently among my fellow Americans. I mean, I know I’m smart, but a person of only average intelligence should be able to see what is happening. Suffice it to say that if blacks didn't think they were being victimized and held down, what would Jesse Jackson and his ilk do for a living? (Heaven forbid they should actually pastor a church.)
