His Point of View

Since the election of our first Negro/African American/Black/Brotha/Nigga/Nigger President the phrase post racial society has been tossed around.  Its bologna. Racism is live and well.  The issue of the day is this advertisement by Nivea which depicts a man of  African descent throwing away mask of an afro wearing, facial hair having black man for a clean shaven “civilized man”.

This ad is just the latest of a series of monthly, if not weekly examples of how racism is still bubbling up in every corner of society.  Last week it was the so called expert blaming the societal ills of the city of London on “black male culture.”  Oh let us not forget the movie “The Help”, which was written by a white woman.  Many say that the movie was a white washed version of the reality of black house servants in the mid 1900′s in America.  The week before that is was the use of the word “nigga” by white female rapper V-Nasty (who?) and all of the black male producers and rappers (also a few white celebrities) who came to her rescue, attempting to give her a “pass” to use the word freely because she was reportedly raised in a primarily black neighborhood(as if that means she can’t be racist, although I am not saying she is racist, I don’t know enough of her to make that claim ).  The week before that we had riots in London started by the alleged wrongful killing of a black man by the police.  I will stop there, as  this post might never end if I continue.  The point of it all is that racism is not something that no longer exists simply because we may chose to ignore it. We don’t have many social movements or rallies against racism anymore, and people who accuse others of racism are quickly ostracized as “pulling the race card” simply because the non-minority may not see or understand the way race factors into that particular event.  The term most appropriate is “white privilege.”  You may very well not be overtly or consciously racist, hell you may not be racist at all, but the fact that you don’t acknowledge or understand how the racism of the government and your ancestors has given you a huge leg up on minorities is a major cause of what many call racist actions or thoughts today.  If your great grandfather owned a business 100 years ago and that set the foundation for your family to be upper middle class and it allowed you to attend a particular University you may not realize that you are benefiting from a privilege.  In most of the country 100 years ago a black man could not have a successful business, therefore his family will never benefit from the fruits of his labor.  From that point on his ancestors can never grow from the foundation he laid, essentially until the last generation of African Americans we had to start completely from scratch (financially) with each generation.  Black families by and large never had assets of any value to pass down and enrich the lives of future generations.  Simply put non-minorities simply are not often exposed to the racism that we are subject to on a daily basis depending upon where one lives.  If you don’t see it, you forget about it or assume that it no longer occurs in our “civilized” society.

Racism will be on its way out the door once poor people realize that we are all, rather we should all be on the same team.  Economic empowerment is the key to ending the vast majority of racism.  If there was no threat to one’s livelihood one would be afraid that “those people” are trying to take what little we have.   Without giving a history and economics lesson I will just say that having an open mind, listening to the complaints of others, and at least considering that race is still a factor in many decisions is the first step toward addressing racism in society.  Every claim of racism is not valid, nor is racism an obsolete concept.  It is very real that minorities are passed up for promotions, refused jobs, and are victims of historically lower quality education.  One thing that disturbs me is the number of people of European descent that have come out about the recent things in the news and basically stated that black folks are over-reacting with the claims of racism.  The fact that you don’t at least understand that there could be some validity to the claims is a problem, either you are fool, in denial or you must be a racist attempting to hide it.  Last week in DC there was an event called the “Slut Walk” which was a rally against rape and male sexual aggression.  Now I have never been raped so it would be foolish of me to tell rape victims to get over it and you are not at a disadvantage socially due to your trauma in the past.  That is basically what people are telling minorities, “shut up about racism” it’s over with and we are all equal today…bologna.