If you hear anyone trying to argue that we live in
post-racial America, please tell that person to sit down and shut the fuck up.
The failures of two grand juries to indict cops for murdering Michael Brown and
Eric Garner should lay the post-racial myth in its grave. Racism is alive and
well in the United States. Just turn on your TV and listen to conservatives like
ex-New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani or FOX News’ Gretchen Carlson or
Congressman Peter King spew ridiculous justifications for the actions of the
police. King thinks Garner died because he was too fat.
Modern racism is comfortably couched in code words and
phrases that allow the speaker a back door to escape being labeled an outright
bigot. The welfare state, the takers, the lazy poor, the criminal class;
prejudice and racial hatred are covered with layers of euphemisms that have
allowed them to be slyly interjected into our national political discourse.
Yes, we elected an African American president, and at the
same time opened a Pandora’s Box of racial hatred that has seen conservatives
accuse Obama of everything from hating America to being the Anti-Christ. When
they couldn’t come up with an actual impeachable offense, they tried to
manufacture one with Benghazi. This colossal effort, this extensive expenditure
of time and energy to try and bring down the President isn’t coming from any
patriotic quest to wrest America from an evil leader, but from the poisoned
stream of racism that runs just beneath the surface of far too many of our
politicians.
The year is 2014, but we are still haunted as a country by
divisive attitudes and racial prejudices that have plagued us since our
founding. Think about the message that’s being sent to black communities in
America through the results of the Brown and Garner grand jury decisions. Justice
has two faces in the U.S. One is white and one is black, and they are not
equal.
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