When I was younger, I did extemporaneous speaking. You see, I had a parent who was a preacher and a parent who was an English teacher. So, not only did I have command of the English language, I was raised in a home where oratory was practiced and fine tuned for a riveting, spiritual, orgasmic Baptist church service weekly. Consequently, it was not surprising that long before I joined Toastmasters, that I had honed my craft at extemporaneous speaking competitions. For those who do not know, you are given a topic and about 30 minutes to put together a speech, to be delivered orally to a panel of judges. You were graded on your grasp of current events, the ability to prepare an intellectual statement about the subject matter, and your oral delivery of that speech. Unlike Sarah Palin, I couldn't jot some buzz words in my hand, I had to know something about the topic, current world and U. S events, and some history. Oratorical trapeze art - like Cirque de Soleil, if you will, with no net. What does this have to do with the elephant in the room?
Everything and nothing. You see, we are in the midst of what will probably prove to be one of the most divisive periods of race relations in this country. Come on, you don't want to admit it, but you know that it is true. You don't want to discuss it, the Democrats don't want to discuss it and the Republicans don't want to discuss it. Why can't we talk about the elephant in the room? Here we are in 2010, HDTV, surround sound stereo and 52 inch screens. Yet, if you turn the volume off this week, and studied the TV screen, you would think you were looking at documentary footage from 1964, 1965, 1968 anti-civil rights protests and demonstrations that had occurred this county. If you turned the volume up, blacked out the screen and listened, no one would be able to convince you this was not audio from the march on Selma. Almost 50 years later and politicians may as well have dunned white hoods and march down Pennsylvania Ave. into the White House. Racial slurs, homophobic insults, and righteous rebel rousers feeling perfectly within their rights to spit upon a member of the congressional Black Caucus. And the statement from the leadership of the Republican party, that these outburst, this open and vitriol hostility, is nothing more than frustration and "isolated incidents".
How many isolated incidents will it take before we can talk about the elephant in the room? What about the incident where someone shoots into the home of a member of the House of Representatives, vandalizing the office of another, pushing and shoving elected officials or even spitting upon a member of congress. How many of those isolated incidents have to occur before we stop glossing over the growing tension, and deal with the issue that is driving this behavior? How many hate filled speeches does Sarah Palin have to deliver under the auspices of rallying the Republican base will it take before the Republican party acknowledges the elephant in the room? How much Democratic party disloyalty on issues where everyone should be in agreement will be necessary before we confront the ugly truth?
The truth is, there is an elephant in the room. And, all of the glossing over, all of the rhetoric and pontificating about "fundamental differences in ideology" really are clever euphemisms for the elephant in the room. That elephant is the systemic racial hostility that divided this county into north and south, into proponents of civil rights and anti-civil rights demonstrators. That elephant, is a growing open hatred and contempt for not just the President, but for many successful African Americans in this country, engendered in part by a profound sense of inferiority when compared to many well educated African Americans, and a sense of entitlement by the majority party. It comes out in well intentioned statements like "it is amazing how smart Obama is". Or, statements like "he is REEEEEEaly smart" as if this is some remarkable phenomenon. The under current and psychosis in that statement is that only one who is the majority party could be smart, that the President's great mind is an anomaly and that it is ok to not refer to him as the President. That elephant, shows up as statements by folks like John McCain that the health care bill is unconstitutional, excuse me? John McCain with his entitlement mindset who just barely finished college, never went to a law school, never studied constitutional law, never taught constitutional law, and now is an expert on the constitutionality of the health care bill. That elephant shows up when politicians like Governor Sonny Purdue, a non-lawyer, asks the Attorney General to explore filing suit on behalf of Georgia to opt out of the health care reform act, become incensed when the Attorney General declines to file suit, and then allege that the reason is because the Attorney General, who happens to be African American declined because he is a Democrat. So does that mean the converse of that must also be true, that the reason Governor Purdue is desirous of filing suit because he is a Republican. Of course not, according to the likes of Governor Purdue. But it is that same mindset, that same entitlement ideology, that says that the African American Attorney General who the governor praised so highly hereto for comes under scrutiny for not signing on to the governor's fight. It is that same entitlement elephant, that causes many in academia to marvel, be shocked, stunned and mezmerized by African American students who speak well, write well, intellectualize well, or analyze well. What does it say about the perceptions of the masses about African Americans, and what does it say about the possibility of continued fallout over the President's policies or initiatives? Was it that some folks who felt entitled, thought that the President achieved his heights as a result of affirmative action, and therefore, lack the intellectual agility and prowess to artfully manuver through the political halls and processes? Or is it more basic than that, that because he has achieved the successes that he has achieved, that the President is not one of "them". The "them" that the masses loath, hate, feel threatened by, and now, it is apparent that he is one of "them" too. In truth, the elephant simply represents the war underway in this country, that Gill Scott Heron spoke of, the one not officially being televised, but going on, nonetheless, the anti-Black, anti-African American, anti-dis empowerment, anti-loss of entitlement war.
So, then why can't we talk about the elephant in the room? We can't talk about it, because we would then have to admit and take ownership of the reality that we saw at the Republican rallies all over the country. We can't talk about it because to talk about it would necessitate that we acknowledge that with all of the alleged progress in race relations in this country, we have not actually gotten anywhere, or at least not far from where we were in 1964. We can't talk about it because then, we have to ask ourselves the painful question, the ugly and devastating question, at what point will Americans embrace its citizens of color, not based on skin color, but based upon the content of their character? We don't talk about it, because it makes you wonder, makes you concerned, worried even....will Martin Luther King's dream be realized, in my lifetime.........
Everything and nothing. You see, we are in the midst of what will probably prove to be one of the most divisive periods of race relations in this country. Come on, you don't want to admit it, but you know that it is true. You don't want to discuss it, the Democrats don't want to discuss it and the Republicans don't want to discuss it. Why can't we talk about the elephant in the room? Here we are in 2010, HDTV, surround sound stereo and 52 inch screens. Yet, if you turn the volume off this week, and studied the TV screen, you would think you were looking at documentary footage from 1964, 1965, 1968 anti-civil rights protests and demonstrations that had occurred this county. If you turned the volume up, blacked out the screen and listened, no one would be able to convince you this was not audio from the march on Selma. Almost 50 years later and politicians may as well have dunned white hoods and march down Pennsylvania Ave. into the White House. Racial slurs, homophobic insults, and righteous rebel rousers feeling perfectly within their rights to spit upon a member of the congressional Black Caucus. And the statement from the leadership of the Republican party, that these outburst, this open and vitriol hostility, is nothing more than frustration and "isolated incidents".
How many isolated incidents will it take before we can talk about the elephant in the room? What about the incident where someone shoots into the home of a member of the House of Representatives, vandalizing the office of another, pushing and shoving elected officials or even spitting upon a member of congress. How many of those isolated incidents have to occur before we stop glossing over the growing tension, and deal with the issue that is driving this behavior? How many hate filled speeches does Sarah Palin have to deliver under the auspices of rallying the Republican base will it take before the Republican party acknowledges the elephant in the room? How much Democratic party disloyalty on issues where everyone should be in agreement will be necessary before we confront the ugly truth?
The truth is, there is an elephant in the room. And, all of the glossing over, all of the rhetoric and pontificating about "fundamental differences in ideology" really are clever euphemisms for the elephant in the room. That elephant is the systemic racial hostility that divided this county into north and south, into proponents of civil rights and anti-civil rights demonstrators. That elephant, is a growing open hatred and contempt for not just the President, but for many successful African Americans in this country, engendered in part by a profound sense of inferiority when compared to many well educated African Americans, and a sense of entitlement by the majority party. It comes out in well intentioned statements like "it is amazing how smart Obama is". Or, statements like "he is REEEEEEaly smart" as if this is some remarkable phenomenon. The under current and psychosis in that statement is that only one who is the majority party could be smart, that the President's great mind is an anomaly and that it is ok to not refer to him as the President. That elephant, shows up as statements by folks like John McCain that the health care bill is unconstitutional, excuse me? John McCain with his entitlement mindset who just barely finished college, never went to a law school, never studied constitutional law, never taught constitutional law, and now is an expert on the constitutionality of the health care bill. That elephant shows up when politicians like Governor Sonny Purdue, a non-lawyer, asks the Attorney General to explore filing suit on behalf of Georgia to opt out of the health care reform act, become incensed when the Attorney General declines to file suit, and then allege that the reason is because the Attorney General, who happens to be African American declined because he is a Democrat. So does that mean the converse of that must also be true, that the reason Governor Purdue is desirous of filing suit because he is a Republican. Of course not, according to the likes of Governor Purdue. But it is that same mindset, that same entitlement ideology, that says that the African American Attorney General who the governor praised so highly hereto for comes under scrutiny for not signing on to the governor's fight. It is that same entitlement elephant, that causes many in academia to marvel, be shocked, stunned and mezmerized by African American students who speak well, write well, intellectualize well, or analyze well. What does it say about the perceptions of the masses about African Americans, and what does it say about the possibility of continued fallout over the President's policies or initiatives? Was it that some folks who felt entitled, thought that the President achieved his heights as a result of affirmative action, and therefore, lack the intellectual agility and prowess to artfully manuver through the political halls and processes? Or is it more basic than that, that because he has achieved the successes that he has achieved, that the President is not one of "them". The "them" that the masses loath, hate, feel threatened by, and now, it is apparent that he is one of "them" too. In truth, the elephant simply represents the war underway in this country, that Gill Scott Heron spoke of, the one not officially being televised, but going on, nonetheless, the anti-Black, anti-African American, anti-dis empowerment, anti-loss of entitlement war.
So, then why can't we talk about the elephant in the room? We can't talk about it, because we would then have to admit and take ownership of the reality that we saw at the Republican rallies all over the country. We can't talk about it because to talk about it would necessitate that we acknowledge that with all of the alleged progress in race relations in this country, we have not actually gotten anywhere, or at least not far from where we were in 1964. We can't talk about it because then, we have to ask ourselves the painful question, the ugly and devastating question, at what point will Americans embrace its citizens of color, not based on skin color, but based upon the content of their character? We don't talk about it, because it makes you wonder, makes you concerned, worried even....will Martin Luther King's dream be realized, in my lifetime.........
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