I've read recently where there has been an outpouring of racism and hatred toward Obama and toward blacks in numerous places around the U.S.-- things like one small store having a gambling pool for picking the date when Obama gets killed, with the wording "Let's hope we have a winner soon", nooses hanging from trees, hate words painted on houses, school children chanting "kill Obama", and the like. There reportedly has been more threats against Obama than ever before for a president-elect. The FBI and Secret Service are supposedly busy investigating numerous threats made against Obama. I had hoped the U.S. was better than this, had somehow outgrown our racist past, maybe had grown up more as a nation. But, instead, racism is making an open comeback. As a nation, we should all be ashamed of such behavior and speak out against such hatred whenever & wherever we hear or see it displayed. Won't we ever learn just how truly ignorant racism is?
I wrote an acrostic poem back in 2002 entitled "A Lingering Disease":
Rarely occurring in humans younger than age five,
Adults carry the disease, communicating it to each kid.
Constantly a threat to harm almost anyone alive,
It remains a malady from which Man needs be rid.
Sorry to say, even today, it continues to thrive,
Mind after mind learning to hate as their parents did.
Wouldn't it be great if a successful Obama presidency was the cure for America's chronic disease of racism? One can only hope...
Published 2008: "Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man". A collection of my poetry. Lulu Press.
See: http://www.gillelands.com/poetry/
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2 comments:
I'm afraid there will always be the fanatical element on either side of an issue. That fact is sad but true.
Eternity will not have those problems, but I, too, hope and pray we will move more toward acceptance of that which doesn't matter and not accept that which is really dangerous to us.
Race isn't an "issue." Attitudes and behaviors are issues, but there are no "sides" to race. One is whatever one was born - it's not a choice. When will we learn not to judge people by their immutable characteristics? How much time and energy is wasted on hatred? Sometimes, I think we've forgotten how to judge bad behavior - we're so caught up in this notion of "political correctness" than we accept and tolerate the intolerable while being hypercritical of things that are rightfully none of our business.
Viv, I think we wouldn't know what's "really dangerous to us" unless it bit us on the butts. I'm more concerned about the erosion of our Constitutional rights than I am about vague threats of terrorism. It's good to keep an eye on "them," but let's not let that distract us from keeping an eye on "us."
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