Today I was called a Racist. Well she said that my criticism of Obama was from my ingrained racism. That statement struck a nerve with me. My answer back to her was that she apparently hadn’t been following my blog. Let me remind everyone that I am not a racist. I am a recovering racist. My problem is that the lady was calling me a racist because I criticized Obama. It is just plain wrong to chastise me without reading what I had written. I have written a lot about Clarence Thomas and not a single person has called me a racist for that. 

I will tell you that I proudly voted for Obama not once but twice. Neither time did I vote for him because he was a Black man. Both times I voted for him because I thought that he was the best man running for the job. I liked John McCain but I liked Obama more. He brought a dignity to the office that I thought was dearly lacking from the Bush administration. He had a way about him that I felt would garner the respect of the world and I think he did. Did I understand the historical significance of his being elected? Of course I did but historical significance is not why I voted for him. Was he a perfect President? Well no. Has there ever been a perfect President? When it comes to honesty I think you have to go all the way back to Carter to find a President as honest as Obama. Obama was a good man but to call someone a racist because they do not agree with everything that Obama did or didn’t do is not right and I think that Obama would agree with me on that one. 

I do understand those eight years with Obama as President had awakened a beast from the past that had inspired such things as Rosewood and the Black Wall Street riot. The four years of Trump made racism mainstream again like it was the 1950s. I was hearing words like the “N” word and Black people being called “spear chucker’s” that I hadn’t heard for over 40 years. We witnessed a police officer kneel on a Black man’s neck until he was dead and then had people try and justify it. We had a police officer shoot a Black man in the back seven times because he would not submit. We had a jogger killed by two White men because he was Black and in the wrong neighborhood while a third man filmed it. The local authorities tried to justify that one too. The list can go on and on. Too many people have complained about the Black Lives Matter movement because in reality Black lives really didn’t matter to them. 

I grew up in a racist time and I know very well what racism is. What I don’t know well is what it is like to be on the other side of racism. The Black side. You could say that what that woman said to me was racist and that it was a racist attack. Was it really?  Besides the insult, did it have any negative effects on my life? That is when it is real racism, when it has a negative effect on a person’s life and bruising my ego does not have the negative effect like being denied a job because of my color or being told I can’t graduate because my hair does not conform to White standards. 

I know that I had doors opened more easily to me most of my life because I was White.  Now I witnessed the marches and riots in the 60s. The struggle for Blacks to be treated like equals before the law. I was a teenager during that time and it left a huge impression on me that has lasted all my life. One of the biggest differences that we have now is the Church. The White Evangelicals were not the powerful political force that it is now and for some reason they have either aligned themselves with the racist or have been very quiet and just ignored the racism within their own ranks. I was raised Lutheran and in the 60s they were active in the desegregation movement with many marching with King. The evils of racism were discussed openly back then. You don’t see that today. Their faith is based on a person of color that they have tried very hard to turn White. They have turned their back on the teachings of that man because his teachings do not feed their racism. Racism at times to me I think is a cash cow for the White Evangelicals. They live in mansions and live like kings, not like the humble disciples of Jesus. Jesus was a homeless man walking among the poor dependent upon the generosity of the people around him for his basic needs. Never did he live in a huge mansion with a pool or never did he ever vacation at any plush religious retreat to reflect and replenish his soul. He was a healer of the poor, not a tool of the rich. The things he never talked about like abortion we make a big thing about and the thing that he did talk about like suffering children and helping the less fortunate we ignore. You could say that many have turned their backs on the words of Jesus because it does not feed their hate and racism. In the case of the church, the teachings of Jesus do not put money into their pockets. Always follow the money. 

Yes I was bent out of shape being called a racist but sometimes that is good because it makes me look inward. My own racism is something that I work on every day as most of us should no matter what color we are.