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Posted by Jerome on February 5, 2009, 8:34 pm, in reply to "Andrew M. Manis: When Are WE Going to Get Over It? "
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--Previous Message--
:
: This is very interesting!
: How True, How True
:
:
:
: Andrew M. Manis is associate professor of
: history at Macon State College in Georgia
: and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon
: Telegraph.
:
:
: Andrew M. Manis: When Are WE Going to Get
: Over It?
:
: For much of the last forty years, ever since
: America "fixed" its race problem
: in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts,
: we white people have been impatient with
: African Americans who continued to blame
: race for their difficulties. Often we have
: heard whites ask, "When are African
: Americans finally going to get over it? Now
: I want to ask: "When are we White
: Americans going to get over our ridiculous
: obsession with skin color?
: Recent reports that "Election Spurs
: Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes"
: should frighten and infuriate every one of
: us. Having grown up in
: "Bombingham," Alabama in the
: 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche
: of comments about what many white classmates
: and their parents wanted to do to John and
: Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
: Eventually, as you may recall, in all three
: cases, someone decided to do more than
: "talk the talk."
: Since our recent presidential election, to
: our eternal shame we are once again hearing
: the same reprehensible talk I remember from
: my boyhood.
: We white people have controlled political
: life in the disunited colonies and United
: States for some 400 years on this continent.
: Conservative whites have been in power 28 of
: the last 40 years. Even during the eight
: Clinton years, conservatives in Congress
: blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to
: the right. Yet never in that period did I
: read any headlines suggesting that anyone
: was calling for the assassinations of
: presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of
: the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for
: their impeachment, perhaps. But there were
: no bounties on their heads. And even when
: someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the
: perpetrator was non-political mental case
: who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.
: But elect a liberal who happens to be Black
: and we're back in the sixties again. At this
: point in our history, we should be proud
: that we've proven what conservatives are
: always saying -- that in America anything is
: possible, EVEN electing a black man as
: president. But instead we now hear that
: school children from Maine to California are
: talking about wanting to "assassinate
: Obama."
: Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only
: ask, "How long?" How long before
: we white people realize we can't make our
: nation, much less the whole world, look like
: us? How long until we white people can -
: once and for all - get over this
: hell-conceived preoccupation with skin
: color? How long until we white people get
: over the demonic conviction that white skin
: makes us superior? How long before we white
: people get over our bitter resentments about
: being demoted to the status of equality with
: non-whites?
: How long before we get over our expectations
: that we should be at the head of the line
: merely because of our white skin? How long
: until we white people end our silence and
: call out our peers when they share the
: latest racist jokes in the privacy of our
: white-only conversations?
: I believe in free speech, but how long until
: we white people start making racist
: loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we
: do flag burners? How long until we white
: people will stop insisting that blacks
: exercise personal responsibility, build
: strong families, educate themselves enough
: to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work
: hard enough to become President of the
: United States, only to threaten to
: assassinate them when they do?
: How long before we starting "living out
: the true meaning" of our creeds, both
: civil and religious, that all men and women
: are created equal and that "red and
: yellow, black and white" all are
: precious in God's sight?
: Until this past November 4, I didn't believe
: this country would ever elect an African
: American to the presidency. I still don't
: believe I'll live long enough to see us
: white people get over our racism problem.
: But here's my three-point plan: First,
: everyday that Barack Obama lives in the
: White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm
: going to pray that God (and the Secret
: Service) will protect him and his family
: from us white people.
: Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any
: white person I overhear saying, in
: seriousness or in jest, anything of a
: threatening nature about President Obama.
: Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough
: to see America surprise the world once
: again, when white people can "in spirit
: and in truth" sing of our damnable
: color prejudice, "We HAVE
: overcome."
: **************************************
: It takes a Village to protect our
: President!!!
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