RACISM IS NOT A GOOD THING FROM ANY SIDE OF IT

God Created All People Equal ~ It's Just That We Can't Get There From Here Unless We Lose the Fear
......................................................................

......................................................................
http://youtube.com/watch?v=swmlc5avUy8

As I walked today with my white skin with a Barack Obama pin on my coat, I felt something. It was just my sense of what was going on. But I trust my intuition. I sensed racism.

I have written about this before: Personally I have experienced racism in my own family. The two times in my life that I experienced it, was when my family found themselves confronted with the issue because I had a black male in my personal life. This happened when I was eleven and when I was thirty-six. You might think that my parents would have let the first one slide because I was only eleven and chances are I wasn't going to marry him one day. But no, that is not what happened. And you might think that when I was thirty-six, that my parents would have realized that it was none of their business, because I was well-beyond the years of being raised by them. But that was not the case.

I no longer am in the 15 year relationship with my former "significant other", but I still adore his family. His family was a blessing to my life and they continue to be a blessing to the son that we adopted together, who is white.

There was one time that he and I attended a concert and I was about the only white person there. That was a revealing and new experience of feelings for me. That is exactly what my former significant other has to live every day for his entire life. We, white people, have no idea what it is like to live with racism every day.

And as much as I love Barack Obama as a Presidential Candidate, I am sobered by the realness of racism that we have in the "United" States of America in 2007. This country will never be the "grown-up" that it has the potential and responsibility to be, until it confronts its racism toward the American Indians, the blacks, the Mexicans, "immigrants" and on and on. We don't really "need" to have another group of human beings to look down upon, in order to "lift our own opinions of ourselves up". We can find our worth without knocking someone else down. But we can't do that unless we are willing to face our internalized racist, bigoted covert or overt ways.

We are better than this. We can do better. But not without asking the questions that will require the courage to face the ugly truth that we are bigots.

Barack Obama bleeds the same color of blood that every other person bleeds. We are all the same in the most human and valuable ways. But many will pass him up because they see his skin.

Racism comes from fear. People controlled by fear about their own worth are most likely to be racist.

One of the last songs that my dad sang to me before he passed away May 10, 2007 was the childhood song:

"Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."

Okay, so I never did get the color thing. I mean who is yellow or red? And I always thought that black people were more brown than black. And I'm not really white. And that "flesh-colored" crayon ~ really was a racist, bigoted statement in a box of crayons. But the idea of that song is that if we are Christian, then we should love and accept everyone equally. But that has not been my experience in my so-claimed Christian family.

I am disappointed to put it mildly that many people won't vote for Barack because of one thing. And it isn't that he lacks experience. Bush didn't have "experience", as well as other qualities and yet he has been the president for two terms. So ~ it would be a really good thing for people to get to know what integrity Barack has and accept him accordingly.

......................................................................

......................................................................
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HFBUgPNcCcE
This Little Light of Mine
Sung by Bruce Springsteen