LEIMERT PARK: The SOUL of Los Angeles
Andrew M. Manis: When Are WE Going to Get Over It?
This was in my inbox today - I had to repost it here... It is brillant!
A White Professor at a GA University -
For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."
Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.
But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."
Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?
How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?
I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?
How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?
Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan: First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.
Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."
**************************************
It takes a Village to protect our President!!!
A White Professor at a GA University -
For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."
Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.
But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."
Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?
How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?
I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?
How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?
Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan: First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.
Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."
**************************************
It takes a Village to protect our President!!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ernie Mixon on -
Have we overcome? What's your thoughts on this essay? I m very interested to find out? It is time start this dialog.... Way past time? ... to me?
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Permalink Reply by Tiffany on -
It is a relief to read this and for someone to acknowledge that there are problems on both sides of the spectrum. Not only has the slave era left its imprint on the black american community but apparently a good number of whites still have the "slave master" mentality as well. I was discussing with a friend that Obama's run for the presidency brought out a lot of ugly in people. Some white friends of hers had demonstrated this and surprised her a lot. Now it's obvious that America is not as post-racial as people thought. I honestly think we need to have an open forum about race...we need to start talking to each other. Because I've heard some crazy rumors that whites have about black people and some crazy rumors that blacks have about white people too. It's all because we aren't talking to each other. Is it even possible for us to put aside our egos long enough to hear each other out? But for now at least we have a chance to treat a festering wound that people use to think had healed.
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Permalink Reply by Ernie Mixon on
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Yes, it is way past time for blacks & whites (because of the slave legacy) to discuss this undercurrent of racisim, bigotry, and prejudice that exist in America. That is one of the major reasons many white people dislike, and some hate our President like never before in History. Yes Racisim is very alive in America and his raising it's ugly head in many many ways... Until we resolve the race problem in America, we will be forever enslaved in the past transgressions of our forefathers and unable to break the cycle of distrust we all feel towards other races and cultures. The idea of white supremacy is alive. The race is a slient live ticking bomb that goes off all the time... When will we ever learn ? Will it be in our lifetimes? Only if we all work towards starting a true honest dialog with each ? Where does it begin? When will it begin? The first step towards healing is admitting that the problem exist and not slide it under our collect subconcious minds as we have in the past and present? .... Yes we have much work to do? my fellow Americans? Let's start by talking to each other....
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Permalink Reply by enhager on -
Andrew Manis has gone viral. This essay has been on Digg, Topix and lots more. Here is his bio according to Wikipedia: (born February 23, 1954, Birmingham, Alabama) is a historian, author, and professor at Macon State College, in Georgia.
An ordained Baptist minister, Manis is an award-winning historian whose research focuses on the role of religion in American life, with particular attention placed on the Civil Rights Movement.
Manis has appeared on C-SPAN and the History Channel as well as Fox News. Manis is a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence and will spend four months in 2009 teaching and researching at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece.
-Macon Black and White: An Unutterable Separation in the American Century. Macon: Mercer University Press/Tubman African American Museum, 2004. -- Winner of the 2005 Georgia Author of the Year Award (History Division) -- National Semifinalist for the 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
-Southern Civil Religions in Conflict: Civil Rights and the Culture Wars. Mercer University Press, 2002. [Revised and expanded edition of my 1987 book; see below]
-Birmingham Revolutionaries: Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Contributor and Co-editor with Marjorie White. Mercer University Press, 2000.
-A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. University of Alabama Press, 1999. -- Winner of the 2000 Lillian Smith Book Award—Winner of the 2001 James F. Sulzby Prize, Alabama Historical Association, 2001, for best book on Alabama history published in 1999-2000—Winner of the 1998 James McMillan Prize, University of Alabama Press, for best manuscript submitted in 1998.
-Southern Civil Religions in Conflict: Black and White Baptists and Civil Rights, 1947-1957. University of Georgia Press, 1987.
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Permalink Reply by Ernie Mixon on
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Thank you for the further research on this very wise man and his brillant essay on race. When I saw this I felt it needed to be seen here on the LBP? You see the value of it also. I really enjoy this site, it keeps me connected to my roots from afar. Thank you so much for the creation of he LPB and I look forward to future dialogs with you and other LPB members.
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Permalink Reply by Bigger Than Your Block on -
thank you for sharing this. when people of color mention these things we're branded racists. when it comes from whites it's not as easy to naysay.
you can't legislate people's hearts. we haven't stopped being racist, hateful, etc., however we have become better at hiding it. it surprised me that so many people were surprised when folks started showing their true colors. it's always good talk about things. thanks for bringing this out.
PEACE,
Shay Olivarria
Speaker/Author
Money Matters: The Get It Done in 1 Minute Workbook
www.MakeMoneyManagementSimple.com
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Permalink Reply by Ernie Mixon on -
Your welcome ... It's a discussion Obama started on the campaign trail when Rev. Wright started his tirate that had some truth ... but also had racist non healing undertones.... I welcome a national dialog of race relations in America... but will it ever happen?
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