Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Everybody needs to stop with the racism. I feel that we had made such strides in race relations…until Obama was elected. What a stoopid paradox, indeed.

I feel it’s apparent that Obama was elected only because he was “packaged” as a black man, and many of those who voted for him had no clue about his policies or agenda. Why is he touted as “America’s First Black President,” technically inaccurate. Why not “America’s First Half-Black Half-White President”? Why not be just an American, since we’re all mixtures of this and that. BECAUSE his promoters PLACED emphasis on race and plan to keep it there for another 2 ½ years, whipping the masses, the grex venalium, into a frenzy.

Sad. Have race relations digressed 20 years? It sure feels that way to me. A person who appears white cannot disagree with the president’s policy without being accused of racism. And that is very frustrating to those who feel this accusation is a way to undermine and discount their true position on the policy.

Then Obama brought his own reverse-racism to the office, which adds more fuel to the fire. It’s almost as if he and his strategists sit around and think up new ways of stirring the pot. His administration emphasizes whatever external “package” a person offers over substance, qualifications, in its appointments and seems to choose hot-button areas in which to push when the timing is just not good. He polarizes us instead of brings us closer together as a country.

If only he could offer us more…like the wisdom and life experience and dignity of a Nelson Mandela. I think Oprah would rock as a POTUS! Imagine the phenomenal cut in pay and power she’d have to take, though. But the sound bites! Her strengths are communication, connecting with common people and managing her public perception every day of the week!

Heavy taxation, government programs, and unenforced immigration laws over the course of many years and administrations have fed this situation of heightened race relations as well. An increased population clamoring for LIMITED resources can really bring out the ugly in people. Taxes are simply too high, and the people carrying that heavy tax burden are angry and trying to use whatever tools and means they can to understand, pinpoint cause, and protest. Those people with less power and means, hotter temperaments and less personal restraint will rely on more primitive solutions such as verbal attacks and violence. Those people on the other side with less means, hotter temperaments, and less restraint will respond in same. They drag everyone down with them – into Angry Mob Mentality.

Two episodes of the television program “Who Do You Think You Are” come to mind. Awesome show tracing family histories of celebrities. Emmitt Smith’s blood test revealed he is ONLY 81% African. The other percentages were Native American (7%) and European (white – 12%). I was flabbergasted because he “appears” to be such a dark-skinned man. But my shock was nothing compared to that of Spike Lee who found out one of his relatives was a white SLAVE-OWNER (gee, does that put him in the same category as me and other light-skinned people that one assumes descended from slave-owners?) Hmmm.

Point being: No one is alive TODAY who was a slave-owner in the U.S. pre-Civil War. Why are we still talking about it like it happened yesterday? Why are we still blaming and compensating for it like it happened yesterday? For Gawd’s sake, people, get OVER it. The only thing holding any of us back is ourselves.

I suspect if we all had a DNA diagnostic, we would find WE ALL HAVE the blood of slaves AND slave-owners in our veins. We are the melting pot, the salad bowl, the land of fascinating, stimulating, exciting diversity. Do NOT let the stoopid turn us into a pack of mongrel dogs.