The meeting between professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and police Sergeant James Crowley at the White House was a good public relations stunt on the part of President Obama, but it may provide some positive redeeming political and social value in setting an example on the need for constructive dialogue on a multitude of complex racial issues by the average citizen.
However, until President Obama talks about power and privilege, he can't talk about change. It's very difficult for White Americans to deal with their own racism, and you can't sweep over 400 years of brutal individual and institutional racism under the rug or over a few beers at the White House.
Mr.President, you would like for the issue of race to go away and perhaps that's why you dodge and tap dance around the subject, but racism and race are part of our DNA.
All of the recent attacks from the Republican Party and others questioning the legitmacy of President Obama's birth certificate, his country of origin (Kenya), his citizenship, his religion regarding whether he is a Muslim, that he is coming to take our guns away, he pals around with terrorists, a woman from Delaware who said"I want my country back", he and his wife going to New York to take in a show on Broadway, he's a terrorist, he wants to give reparations to Black people, he doesn't like white people, he's a racist and doesn't like white culture, impeach Obama,Rahm Emanuel needs to put"Gorilla glue on his chair to keep him in the oval office,just say no,he's a Nazi, he's an elitist,he's is an apologist, questioning him and his wife's patriotism, misplaced comments like: "is he an Arab, he is a socialist, absurd inflammatory comments on health care reform, he's an affirmative action baby, why did he stay in Reverend Wright's Church for twenty years listening to those racists sermons, kill him, are all manifestations and by products of overt unadulterated white racism. The code words differ but the message is the same.
The late world renowned famous African American Social Scientist&Psychologist, Dr Kenneth Clark said in 1963: "Racial prejudices are indications of a disturbed and potentially unstable society.
Blogger Black Buzz says America in 2009 has the potential of going back to the days of Plessy vs. Ferguson with its persistent Jim Crow mindset and with the United States Supreme Court doing everything in its power to make the return to Plessy a new 21st century reality. So how can we as a society treat the disease of white racism when the vast majority of whites remain in denial ?
According to the highly esteemed Dr. Alexander Thomas, Professor of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center, and Director Psychiatric Division, Bellevue Hospital, stated: "To gloss over race in a racist society may in itself be a capitulation to racism". Dr. Thomas further states that: "Racism, unfortunately, is not the monopoly of a single type of personality structure. All kinds of people can be racists: normal and abnormal, paranoid and non-paranoid, aggressive and passive, domineering and submissive."
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John A. Powell,legal scholar stated "The slick thing about whiteness is that you can reap the benefits of a racist society without personally being racist.
Historian Robin D.G.Kelly, said"Race was never just a matter of how you look,it's about how people assign meaning to how you look."
Alan Goodman,Biological Anthropologist said"Race is not based on biology,but race is rather an idea that we ascribe to biology."
Race has no genetic basis. Not one characteristic,trait or even gene distinguishes all members of one so-called race from all the members of another so-called race.
Human subspecies don't exist. Unlike may animals modern humans simply haven't been around long enough,nor have populations been isolated enough,to evovle into separate subspecies or races. On average,only one of every thousand of the nucleotides that make up our DNA differ one human from another. We are one of the most genetically similar of all species.
Skin color really is only skin deep. The genes for skin color have nothing to do with genes for hair form,eye shape, blood type,musical talent, athletic ability or forms of inteligence. Knowing someone's skin color doesn't necessarily tell you anything else about them.
Most variations is within,not between,"races." Of the small amount of total human variation,85% exists within any local population. About 94% can be found within any continent. That means,for exmaple that two random Koreans may be as genetically different as a Korean and an Italian.
Today,racism is far more camouflaged than it was earlier in the century. It is buried in institutional practices. It is hidden in a coded language and subtle messages some people get when they shop,or look for a place to live or for a taxi,or have dealings with the police.
PROJECT HIP-HOP,1997
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