America's First Black President And Racism

When President Obama first announced he was running for president, I began to pay very close attention to the presidential race. Never believing the USA would elect a black president in my time, I watched the race from beginning to the end on CNN (and yes I did indeed find them to be very fair and balanced). I just sat motionless for a few minutes before it finally sank in that Wolf Blitzer, Journalist & CNN Reporter, had just said “Barack Obama was the ne w President Elect”. Remembering the governor’s race in “82” when Tom Bradley, former Mayor of Los Angeles, ran for governor, I thought that before I began to celebrate, I had better sleep on it and see how things looked in the morning. If I awoke and Barack Obama was still president elect and some unforeseen force had not somehow caused him the win, I would then exhale.

We finally elected a black president; did this mean that now racism was becoming a thing of the past? Could we possibly now look beyond the color of a person’s skin and see his true worth and character? I think this is a good time for this great nation to show the world that we are truly what we profess to be. That we are a nation free of hypocrisy and committed to the prosperity and welfare of its people. But is this what we are really showing the on looking world?

Would you say that this president has been treated with the same respect and dignity as previous presidents? Have we shown support or allowed our deep rooted feelings of racism and hate to prevent us from coming together as a people? Is racism fueling the opposition’s quest for power or their goal of regaining power? However, there are those who say the claim of racism is fowl play and has nothing to do with the real issue which is “opposition to policy” but is this really true?

Recently Jimmy Carter, former US president, ignited a big uproar when he stated, "The animosity towards President Barack Obama is due to racism and much of the opposition to Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man". Could we really be so blind as to think that this could not be true? In response to many commenting on this statement, Roland Martin, Journalist, Columnist and CNN Contributor could not have said it better. "Just because we elected an African American president does not mean we believe it is the end of racism". All Americans are not racists. However, we do know that this country's history is deeply rooted in such. To feel that the protesters displaying signs of our president as an African voodoo priest, or his faced painted to appear as a spook are not meant to belittle and degrade him but express disapproval or disagreement is ludicrous. There is a huge difference.

Are these the ones who never wanted a black president and are now taking advantage of any situation in which they can underhandedly show their true feelings and character? Let's not forget about the racist e-mail aimed at President Obama from a republican legislative aide depicting him as 2 cartoonish white eyes peering from a black background. It is also the opinion of some that Mark Williams, organizer of the Tea Party Express, "throws a rock and hides his hands". An Indonesian Nazi or Muslim is what he called the president. Does that sound like an expression of disagreement of policy or a blatant attempt to degrade? Could it be that they are among those who ridiculously view the election of a black president as a direct threat to white supremacy?

This president inherited a country with a failing economy in financial ruins along with two wars which created a state of distress felt around the world. Yet we allow political tricks and racist rhetoric to confuse and divide us, preventing our president from doing the job we elected him to do (http://authspot.com/poetry/a-poem-for-the-president/). The actions of the opposition seem to indicate that racism is alive and well, and continues to play a big part in our politics. As the saying goes, “If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, it’s a duck”.