The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in coastal Georgia were pages in the book of race relations in America that were corrupted by politics. Other pages that turned political include Mike Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York, etc., etc. The Brown incident was due to a policeman protecting himself from being killed; the Garner incident was due to the police being overzealous and inappropriate in its use of force. Years later the U.S. is still agitated by those incidents and others, including where two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were ambushed and killed for revenge while sitting in their police car. Why is this happening?
I believe that many Americans are obsessed with race. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that his dream was that one day his four little children would live in a nation where they would be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. In other words, a “color-blind” society was his dream. The opposite has and is taking place even though race relations in the U.S. for most people are okay. Democrat politicians and their minions call anyone a racist who disagrees with them, whether or not it has anything to do with race. Moreover, the government encourages discrimination in many, many ways including something so minor as requiring race and ethnic information in order to get medical care (I refuse to provide it calling it “racist” on the form).
My perspective on race relations today versus throughout the past is that, with the exception of the past 15 years, relations have improved significantly in the past 60 years. But if my perspective is accurate, why is racism such a major concern today? Is it really Democrat politics as I stated earlier? Author of the book, The Big Black Lie, Kevin Jackson, blames the Democrat Party in its attempt to convince voters that Republicans are racists. In his book, Wrong on Race, Bruce Bartlett enumerates the Democrat Party’s history of racism. Most recently, author of the book, Mugged, Ann Coulter, gives a very detailed account of racial demagoguery by the Democrat Party from the seventies to Obama. My own experience and observations validate what I read and make me angry. The pain and suffering by all parties has been perpetuated solely for political gain. I also agree with Dinesh D’Souza’s book, The End of Racism, that the American obsession with race is fueled by civil rights and political establishments that have a vested interest in perpetuating black dependency.
Will this obsession with race ever end? Only when the deception behind it (like the media using Trayvon Martin’s photo when he was an innocent-looking 12-year-old instead of his then-current 18-year-looking self) is fully exposed and widely acknowledged. Unfortunately, that day may never come. What would Dr. King say? Nothing…I believe he would be in tears!
Let’s go back in time to when African-Americans were freed from slavery and see what Booker T. Washington, born a slave, who established the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to educate and train African-Americans and was the most prominent African-American in his day (1856-1915), said in his book, “Up from Slavery”: “…the policy to be pursued with reference to the races was, by every honorable means, to bring together and to encourage the cultivation of friendly relations, instead of doing that which would embitter.” What is happening today is the opposite of what Mr. Washington advocated and is being done mostly in order to keep 90% of African-Americans voting for the Democrat Party.
Obviously, the violent protests by the racist groups were reprehensible and the violent protests against them were also wrong. The violence was wrong. President Trump condemned the violence on three occasions on TV as well as in a few tweets yet he was still criticized. This indicates how political “race” has become in America. It needs to stop. The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives all Americans the right to protest but no one has the right to protest violently and hurt others. Police need to do their job and immediately arrest anyone being violent; however, police need to be supported by their political leaders. Fat chance!
My credentials for stating the above: while working for the Federal government for over 40 years, I volunteered to perform three “collateral-duty” jobs that took up to 15% of my official work time, each for a minimum of five years. Two of the three involved fighting racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination. In one of my collateral-duty jobs, I was instrumental in increasing Latino employment by my Federal Bureau from under 1 % to 6% of the workforce (as the Hispanic Employment Program Manager); in the other collateral-duty job, I counseled about a dozen minorities and women in seeking remedies for alleged discrimination (as an EEO Counselor). Each of these positions required extensive training which I was happy to take and I performed well, to the extent that I received EEO awards from my bureau and the Department of Interior. These experiences, plus working at my father’s butcher shop (with a 99% African-American clientele) while growing up, working as a counselor at a camp with 50% African-American “campers,” and attending a Junior High School with 50% African-American students, gives me a far-better perspective than most Caucasians in understanding race relations.
Let’s end the obsession; we’re all children of God and we all bleed red.
