POST RACIAL AMERICA ???

Frederick Douglas, freedom fighter, author, lecture

Post-Racial America ???

On Monday January 17, 2011 in the city of Spokane, in the state of Washington, in ‘post-racial’ America, during a parade rally celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, someone left a highly sophisticated bomb with a remote control strategically located on the parade route exactly where it would do the most damage and kill the most people.

Washington State has long been a stronghold of support for right-winged militants and a haven for white supremacist organizations. But it comes as a real shock that such an attempt would be made with a black president in the White House in this ‘post-racial’ America. After all racism no longer exist since the election of a black man to that office, and all the hatred for blacks by white supremacist disappeared or evaporated with President Obama’s inauguration. At least that’s what the propaganda machines keep feeding us.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the bomb was meticulously manufactured, extremely lethal and placed in a position on the route where it would have killed several by remote detonation. The FBI must be mistaken though because I distinctly recall hearing Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others say that we are now living in a ‘post-racial’ society where racism and white supremacy no longer exist.

What is interesting is that 43 years after Dr. King’s death the same hatred that murdered him and bombed a church in Alabama killing 4 little girls is the same hatred that almost reeked havoc on the streets of Spokane in 2011. If not for the astute observations of some alert citizens we would have the trauma of Birmingham all over again. On December 10, 1964 during his acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize Dr. King made mention that on the day before (Dec. 9, 1964) there were no less than 40 churches bombed in the state of Mississippi due to racism and the notion of white supremacy.

Interestingly, on December 3, 2010 twenty-six year old Frederick Jermaine Carter was found hanging by his neck from a twelve-foot limb of a forty-foot oak tree in Greenwood Mississippi. What is more interesting is that the tree he was found hanging from is less than 10 miles from where Emit Till was brutally maimed and murdered for being a black boy attempting to speak to a white girl. The Sheriff’s office of Greenwood say that, the shorter than 6ft tall Frederick, committed suicide by stringing himself up over a twelve-foot limb of a forty-foot tree. While this is going on the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour continues to lambast and condemn President Obama just for being black and proclaims that he and Frederick Jermaine Carter, are and were tumors on the State of America. Mr. Carter’s family however, says that the 26-year-old was not suicidal at all and, on the contrary, was quite happy with his gainfully-employed life.

The purpose of this blog is to question how all these issues are able to exist in a “post racial” society. America claims that it has risen above its Jim Crow issues and it’s predisposition with WHITE SUPREMACY. America claims that it does not suffer from Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome as a nation. The United States of America vehemently refuses to admit or apologize for its cruel injustices to its fellow human beings during the time of slavery up to the present.

And so this blog is to question when. When will these United States of America take ownership of the crimes it committed and is still committing against its fellow human beings? When will its officials, including our current President, address the issues that have plagued the African in America since the 1600’s? When will we address the issue of white supremacy and racism in these United States? When will we face our greatest demon; a demon that says I, THE WHITE MAN, AM BETTER THAN YOU, THE BLACK MAN?

Until we have courage enough for this question; until we muster the strength to deal with this issue, we will all suffer. Because whether we choose to face it or not, the only reason that bomb didn’t go off in Spokane is because the hate-mongers and orchestrators who planned the bombing of the MLK parade in Spokane Washington were not as efficient and organized as that lynch-mob in Greenwood Mississippi.

Given my last statement; I have two questions. 1) are we really living in a “Post-Racial Society”? And 2) when will we learn to love instead of hate? by Ty Gray-El, author, poet, father