Y'all Still Obfuscating About Racism

Peep the comment I received from a person calling themselves Just Me.   That's a red flag right there that some BS is about to come up when peeps won't put their names on their comments.


The person wrote this on a September 9, 2009 Global Comment post I compiled about President Obama entitled America's Anxiety About Obama Is Mostly Skin Deep

 First off I must say I try to be as anti-racist as I can be. Secondly, call me a devil's advocate if you must. The election of Obama has shown LOTS of racism in this country, on BOTH sides of the coin. Many people voted FOR him simply based on the color of his skin, and many people voted AGAINST him simply based on the color of his skin. It went both ways and either way it is still racism. Agree or not, that's what racism is, judging someone based on the color of their skin. As far as race is considered, there is only ONE race of people on this planet.... The Human Race. We are all brothers and sisters, we just look different! 

For somebody who claims to 'try to be anti-racist', there are so many fails in this comment I don't know where to start.   But you're correct on one point, you're trying to be anti-racist and failing miserably.

The usual 'one race, the human race ' line which is almost always uttered by white peeps  I don't disagree with that comment on the surface.  Life experience and decades of observation taught me race DOES matter.

Second, the erroneous statement that racism is 'judging someone based on the color of the skin'    Um no, that's prejudice.  Racism is prejudice plus power.

But let me break it down for in black and white for you (pardon the pun).   Ahem.

Racism is the systematic discrimination, denial of rights and benefits by whites against non-whites in all areas of human activity.  (economics, education, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war). 


One thing that conservatives and vanilla liberal progressives continue to get fuzzy about or willfully ignore is that racism has a power element     Using the simplistic statement that many peeps who voted for against President Obama for skin color reasons to set up a false equivalency is full of fail as well. 

There is no equivalency between white voters who voted against President Obama and Black voters who voted for him.   The white people who voted against President Obama simply because they can't stand Black people did so for racist reasons.   It is a racist act because they have historical societal power backing up their prejudices.  

African-Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 were not being racist.  We are only 13% of the population and it illogical to think that a minority group can oppress a majority group.   We don't have the collective societal power to keep the white majority from doing anything against their will.   

Black citizens to a person were voting for him not only because we liked him and believed he was the best and most qualified person for the job, it was also the first time in our nation's history someone who shared our ethnic background was on the ballot for the highest office in our country in addition to his being the Democratic party nominee.   You are being disingenuous, willfully ignorant and prejudiced to state otherwise.

African Americans make their decisions who to support in an election just like any other voter in this country, and to suggest we only voted for Obama only because he was Black is borderline racist in and of itself. 
   

Whites want to gloss over that fact that they hold that societal power, and have (and continue to) wield it across the sweep of recorded human history in racist ways with the most recent example being the 2010 midterm elections.

Do the words 'take our country back' ring a bell?    The Tea Klux Klan?   .

Thank you for playing and we have lovely parting gifts for you.  .  


So stop obfuscating about race and deal with the reality that racism not only has a power element in it, it has  over the sweep of American history been lopsidedly one sided.