The Way I See It: Racism

Racism has never left this nation, the power it had before the signing of the Civil Rights Act slithered into the dark recesses of society waiting to once more profane society with its dogmatic perspective. It lurked in the darkness waiting for someone to infuse it back into the mainstream of our society.

During the presidential campaign, we sniffed in the air rhetoric that sounded familiar but many of us shook our collective heads saying no, this is the 21^st century; we are misconstruing what we hear. Upon the election of the first African-American president, the euphoria for many of us was mind-boggling, we assumed we had cleared a most negative reflection of our nation but we were wrong. The poisonous and insidious words started with an egregious remark by Rush Limbaugh “wishing that Obama fails” before Barack Obama took the oath of office. The president and the rest of us soon realized the stench we smelled in the air was indeed the foul stench of racism. Its purpose is dichotomy; to divide until its putrid stench is within every nook and cranny of society.

There are some among the citizenry who have valid misconceptions due to what they were taught as children and what permeates from the dark underbelly of hatred. The hatemongers within this nation have used the misconceptions to make generalized statements thus compounding the fears of those who are ignorant to the truth. Those who started the first established government within this nation realized that slaves were indeed human beings, not human chattels, this is why in the creation of The Constitution, Amendment XIII, “Abolition of slavery”, states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” In Amendment XV, it states, “The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Although these hatemongers love to cling to The Constitution, they refuse to acknowledge the fact that the heritage of slavery is just that, a heritage. It should not be assumed that the descendants of former slaves are less than another human being or another race. Thomas Jefferson recognized this when he wrote in The Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self evident that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”[1] What many may not be aware of is the fact that he got the idea of this from The Virginia Declaration of Rights written by George Mason that states in Section 1, “That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights.”[2] One cannot hold against another the ugliness of their history without acknowledging their own.

As a nation of “alleged” Christians, racism should have no place among our midst. The duplicitous act of the person who shared the edited tape of Mrs. Sherrod, saying his name gives him more credibility than he deserves, should really be an invitation for each and every citizen to examine themselves before they dare scrutinize another. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”[3] This incident, albeit unfortunate, has a silver lining if we are willing to look deep within and realize, as Mrs. Sherrod did, “if you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.”[4]

Let us consider on how much better, how much stronger we could be as a nation if we reflected on these four truths. The first, “So GOD created man in His own image”[5]; the second “GOD is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth”[6]; the third “In truth, I perceive that GOD shows no partiality”[7]; and the fourth “We ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of GOD.”[8]