“Racism lives in the USA
Look up to what Martin Luther King had to say
I don’t want my kids being brought up this way
Hatred towards each other is not ok”
—“Peaceful World”. John Mellencamp and India.Arie
This song is rolling through my head today. While most of the country is celebrating a significant defeat of racism, I seem to be swimming in a sea of it. It comes from spending time at work with the racist people. They all ended up voting for Obama. But now they are having second thoughts. Here’s what set them off.
Pictures of non-white people celebrating
They are concerned now that ‘those kinds’ of people are going to be allowed to go to the White House. Personally I didn’t realize there was a ban in effect now. They also want a guarantee that they never hear anyone speak of racism again. They think that this election proves that there is no racism here. (Hello? Did you hear yourself make your last point?). So everybody just better shut up now about being discriminated against.
There is one other crazy liberal at work besides me and she was trying to explain the state of the world to them. It wasn’t working. I was staying in another room because I didn’t want to get into a fight. She finally came and found me for backup. She kept rubbing her temples and saying, “I can’t believe it. They are actually going backwards. They voted for him and they are going backwards!” She had to walk away for a while so she didn’t smack someone.
Racism makes me sick as well, I thought we were making progress, but it sounds like it is still a long road to travel. I am so proud to be an American abroad again, have been embarassed by my president for too long. Did you know Obama has Irish ancestry, from a village down the road from me. We are claiming him as Irish here, people were happy with the results, it is nice to hear.
Thanks for commenting and finding my blog, tried replying to your comment, but the justjunkmail address rejected me lol.
I think the people who voted for him, did so because he is half white. They actually thought he shouldn’t go around calling himself African American. I try to view it all as an amusement instead of getting emotionally involved in other people’s distorted thinking.
My hubby was pulling the same sort of attitude, last night, as your coworkers. WITHOUT the added benefit that he’d actually voted for Obama. Makes me sick, the kind of hypocracy. I outright told him how sick it makes me to hear him spout this racist, prejudiced BULL____, when I know that he’s got no problem being friends with black folks. It’s discusting! And when the hubby started spouting off that “obama’s not MY president”, I reminded him that Obama was his president the same way that Bush was my president, even though I refused to vote for the guy. He’s president of OUR country, and as citizens of that country, he’s our president! So suck it up and deal with it!
I just hope that Obama has (at least) 4 peaceful years in the White House (maybe a second term as well?) without any attempts on his life, or the lives of those he loves. I can tell after this election process, that racism and white supremacy feelings are alive and well in this country, at it pains me to no end to know that.