Lately, I have been so enmeshed in my own pathetic life that I completely missed the news about an affront to prominent black scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jr. (thanks to C. for telling me about it). The story goes as follows: Gates returned home from a trip to find his front door jammed. He enlisted the aid of his driver to help him to force the door open. Apparently, while this was going on a neighbor called the police and reported that two black men were breaking into the house. The story should have ended once Gates produced identification with his address thereby ascertaining that he was in fact a resident of the home but instead he was arrested, allegedly for disorderly conduct. Now I can imagine that Gates had some harsh words for the officers and I can’t say that I blame him. If you were accused of burglarizing your own home (added to the stress of traveling and fighting to gain entrance) I’m sure you’d be a little upset too.Racism is such a messy topic and I really hate to revisit and rehash but sometimes we really have no choice. I do believe that racism is alive and well in America. It is visible and ever present. More than anything, I’m really tired of the automatic dismissal of people who believe that they have a legitimate right to claim that they were targeted because of their race, simply because we now have a black president. Give me a break! Finally, after dozens of white men before him, a black man was finally elected to the highest position and racism suddenly becomes a non-issue? That’s an easy enough statement to make when you haven’t ever been a victim of racism. Unfortunately the history that this country was built on cannot be wiped out simply because of one act.
Personally, racism is the very last option that I allow my mind to consider whenever I encounter anything that seems foul for no good reason. But incidents such as the one involving Gates are not uncommon throughout America. As I read about it, I was reminded of another incident in Boston where blacks were essentially stripped of their basic rights and were treated as criminals. All because of a white man’s accusation that a black man killed his wife. Ironically, it turned out that the ‘grieving husband’ was the was the killer but police action sent a message that blacks are and will forever be second class citizens whose rights could be stripped at will. America still has a long way to go but that’s just my opinion. Read some of the comments that follow this article to see why I still worry.
