Suburban-raised white kids (like me) often mislead themselves into believing, now that we have a black president, that racism is in its dying days.
While many of us were never taken in by the “post-racial America” myth, we often permit ourselves to believe in a “pre-post-racial” America.
During the election, I saw a photo of a sign on a Virginia roadside (this was on the Tubes), which boldly proclaimed, “Rednecks for Obama — Enough is Enough,” alongside an image of a Confederate flag.
I believed that most of Anglo America would behave thusly. If Obama were a decent president, I thought, racist whites would cease to be racist or at least make an exception for Barack.
There are three reasons this belief has abandoned me.
One is the intense hate from Birthers, who claim — against all evidence — that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. Leading the charge is someone who (surprise) was not herself born in the United States. (And anyway, the alternative is who, John McCain? He was born in Panama.)
The second reason is the equally intense hate from the health care protesters organized by astroturfers. Having been shouted at by some, it’s safe for me to say that they are confused. Indeed, they’ve dubbed the plans — all of the plans — ”Obamacare,” though none of the plans were actually proposed by Obama.
I could provide anecdotal evidence, but it would be merely anecdotal — and Keith Olbermann has already done so. Certainly not all of the protesters are racist, but the flashover point is racism.
Those two reasons alone are somewhat easily-dismissed, but the third is the one that horrifies me. First, a little background.
From the very beginning of his campaign, Barack Obama made a point of trying to show kids — the ones who never thought they had a chance of going anywhere, kids whose parents have left, kids who have nothing — that they can be anything they want.
He lectured fathers about staying involved in their children’s lives.
None of this was political — anymore than having a basketball star come talk to kids is really about basketball. It was about setting an example for those who need it (and probably why they never brought basketball stars to my school).
Inner city kids have had it bad. In particular, non-white inner city kids have had few examples. It was easy for me to grow up thinking, “I can be an astronaut or president” or anything else, but many kids have had no such examples — at least, until the election of Barack Obama.
So it is with disgust that I view reports like this.
People think the President talking to schoolchildren is a political ploy to brainwash the kids.
That’s true, I suppose, if by “brainwash” you mean showing kids that a disadvantaged person (i.e., his father left at an early age, or he is from a racial group with lower average socio-economic status) can succeed and be president.
Perhaps these white Republican protesters are upset that their kids might have an opportunity to grow up in a post-racial America. But it’s not really about the white kids; this speech, in all likelihood, is for the disadvantaged children.
Mostly I suspect the protesters are simply unaware of all of the disadvantaged inner city children, that they are so focused on their own lives that they don’t realize what the rest of America is dealing with. This, too, is racism, but of a different sort, a selfish sort.
A big part of me doubts that interpretation, though; part of me believes the people protesting the school speech are secretly upset that it might give black kids ideas about what they might be when they grow up.
I worry every day that Obama will be assassinated. If that happens, the Kennedy assassination will likely resemble a walk in the park.
