True Colors?

A YouTube video of soundbite interviews of folks entering a McCain-Palin rally last week in Strongsville is making the rounds on the Internet, and some Obama supporters are getting their underwear all bunched up about it. The most disturbing aspect of the videos, at least for me, is not that the all-White crowd (and I do mean all-White... as White as a Republican National Convention, as White as a Wasilla, Alaska pee-wee hockey game, as White as... well, you get the point) were supportive of the Republican standard-bearer, but how viscerally-based their comments seemed to be. They obviously are reacting to Obama's race when forming their opinions, not weighing his arguments... and using something as juvenile skin color to make their decision as to who should lead the country -- and that's really scary.

We got into this current mess because voters made bad decisions, and while I detest the current president, it has nothing to do with his skin color... it has to do with his lack of gray matter.

Not that I -- or anyone else for that matter -- should be surprised by how big a factor skin color is playing in the election -- race still is the overriding factor in the American psyche and has been for hundreds of years. Indeed, it has proven to be our national Achilles' heel, a hurt we haven't quite yet figured out how to let go of.

The good news, however, is that we've obviously grown enough in the last year or so to nominate (and probably elect) a Black man to lead the nation; the bad news is... reactionary forces are retrenching, redoubling their ugly efforts to keep the country stuck in its racist past. The Ku Klux Klan was organized as a reaction to Emancipation, and just as sure as God made little green apples, there's going to be some sort of similar national negative reaction to Obama being elected president. There are still too many ignorant, knuckle-dragging yahoos left in the country for us to expect otherwise.

On the other side of the coin I'm hearing liberals characterize any and all opposition to Obama as being rooted in racism -- which is pure nonsense. There are some very principled people who oppose Obama for some very principled reasons: They simply disagree with his policies... and that's fine. But these are not the people who show up at McCain-Palin rallies and yell "traitor!" and "kill him!" every time Obama's name is mentioned. No, these are thinking, adult conservatives who truly believe in their own worldview; the tremendous mistake they are making is to not speak out against the rednecks that are hijacking their cause and making conservatism synonymous with bigotry. Their silence (yes, along with McCain's) is deafening, and extremely dangerous.

It's the same lack of moral courage that's displayed... when a cross is burned on the lawn of a Black family attempting to move into in an all-White neighborhood... and not one single White person in that community dares to speak out and say "This is wrong!" Not one elected official, not one church leader, not one neighbor. When good people stand idly by and do nothing, evil triumphs. I don't believe that every — or ever the majority — of White people who were at the McCain-Palin rally in Strongsville are racists, they just pretended not to hear when the word "nigger" was used. Buy hey, they've been pretending not to hear it for years, every time someone in their social circle uses it. They're not about to fight for the "other" guy.

My dear mother, God rest her soul, was bigoted -- she didn't have much use for White folks -- and she, quite naturally, transmitted some of those feelings down to me. However, part of my becoming a rational, thinking adult was to look at -- to closely scrutinize -- everything I had been taught to believe (by everyone who impacted me), and to hold on to the good things and discard the bad. I don't think my mother meant to infect me with her racism, but she did, and, as much as I loved her, I had to one day tell her that she was wrong, that I rejected her views on race... and most importantly, that I forgave her for attempting to cripple me, to saddle me with her bigoted beliefs.

It was at that point that I finally grew up, that I became my own man... and it's time for the remaining bigots in America to do the same. Our true colors in America are not black or white; they’re actually Red, White and Blue. Those who wish to oppose Obama should find a good, honest reason to do so (there probably are many)... but they should not be in opposition to him because of something as trivial, juvenile and asinine as the color of his skin -- now that's really stupid.

In the final analysis juvenile thinking by adults is costly... it will hurt the country in one way or another, and, considering our current financial crisis, the last thing we need to do is to shoot ourselves in the foot, to cripple ourselves, as the remainder of the world whizzes past us in the quest for financial hegemony.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com

Mansfield Frazier's hardback book, From Behind the Wall, published by Paragon House, is available again. Visit http://www.frombehindthewall.com for more information.
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