State of the Great Conversation: Race in America

By jen

Excellent article at Villainous Company:

Recently in response to some disturbing videos of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama urged America to have a long overdue conversation about race. An honest conversation.

I often wonder if we will ever get to that point, or indeed if such a thing as an honest conversation on race is even possible in this country? I don’t see how it can be, when the truth of the matter is that we are still so conscious of skin color that we refuse to conduct the conversation in a race-neutral fashion?

Consequently, blacks are allowed to say certain things:

Obama acknowledges, with no small irony, that he benefits from his race.If he were white, he once bluntly noted, he would simply be one of nine freshmen senators, almost certainly without a multimillion-dollar book deal and a shred of celebrity. Or would he have been elected at all?

Yet if whites say exactly the same thing, they are accused of racism:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Ferraro told a local California newspaper last week.”And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept,” Ferraro said.

The only difference between those two statements, really, is the skin color of the speaker. So why did Ms. Ferraro’s comment create such a furor? And more importantly, why on earth has Mr. Obama mischaracterized her comment, when he freely admitted his race has conferred some political advantages?

My very favorite part of the clip is when Joy Behar says that white people “haven’t been oppressed for the past millions of years”.Um Joy? Number one, there haven’t been humans on Earth for that long, and number two, blacks haven’t been oppressed any more than anyone else (who isn’t black themselves) throughout time. Again, I urge a thorough reading of some books on ancient history; it would help the debate a lot. You could read about Asian, Indian, and African history for starters.

Oh, and since we’re having the long-awaited “open and honest discussion” about race, I may as well pile on. Check this out. People are pissed because the following Vogue cover makes Lebron James look like King Kong and therefore is raaaacist…

He doesn’t look like King Kong to me. He looks like a bad muhfugger who could literally leap over my head and totally kick my ass in a game of H.O.R.S.E.

I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the White Supremacists of South Africa. In fact, South Africa allowed Israel to test its nuclear weapons in the ocean off South Africa. The Israelis were given a blank check: they could test whenever they desired and did not even have to ask permission. Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs.