One of the biggest misnomers that many people believe is that racism in America no longer exists because the country now has its first Black president.
While the United States has made significant progress during the past 50 years, to suggest that we live in a racially harmonious country is absolutely absurd. Just consider some of the recent racially offensive things that have transpired over the past couple of weeks:
On February 18, the New York Post published a cartoon that portrayed a police officer shooting an ape. The caption has another officer saying, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” The cartoon was published one day after President Barack Obama signed into law the $787 billion economic stimulus plan that he intensely promoted.
The New York Post defended itself by saying that the illustration was actually a parody that played off the actual shooting of a pet chimpanzee earlier that week.
Most people are knowledgeable of the deeply rooted negative connotation associated with monkeys and African-Americans. The New York Post acted in an incredibly irresponsible manner by not only publishing the cartoon, but also initially defending it. As a major media outlet that is supposed to be a purveyor of truth, the Post failed miserably on a multitude of levels.
It was wonderful to see the various condemnations that people from all over the country voiced, but it would be even better to see responsible New York Post advertisers refuse to do business with a publication that promotes overt racism.
Last week, Republican governors in some of the most economically-deprived areas of the U.S. refused to accept stimulus funds for their states. The areas included South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alaska. The governors say their refusal to accept the funds is because the money comes with “too many strings attached or that expansion of certain benefits is unsustainable.
I’m not sure if these governors, particularly Mississippi’s Gov. Haley Barbour and Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal remember that massive storm called Hurricane Katrina that savagely wrecked their respective areas. Both states are still trying to readjust from the effects of Katrina as well as the current economic decline, yet they refuse to accept money from the federal government. Amazing.
Something deep within my soul (and probably yours too) tells me that the primary reason these uber-conservatives don’t want the money is because the president, who adamantly supported the plan, is a Black man. It’s unfortunate that given President Obama’s intelligence and vast level of accomplishments that some people in this world still can’t see beyond the color of his skin. To them, he is and probably forever will be viewed as a ni#*er who they will never support.
The aforementioned are racially insensitive things that were a direct attack on Obama. If people are treating the man who holds the highest office in the land so badly and in such a public manner, imagine what they’re doing to the average Black man in today’s society.
I’ve had Black men and women tell me that since Obama was elected, they’ve been treated worse by some whites than ever before.
“It’s as if I’m being punished because Obama is now president,” said Earl Winston Jr., a 33-year-old Black man who claims to have been repeatedly racially profiled and harassed by white males since last November.
Racism is still very much alive and prevalent in today’s society. Perhaps Attorney General Eric Holder said it best:
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”
I concur.
