I am a news junkie so I listen to the radio a lot , most of the time you will catch me with the dial in my car radio firmly locked on NPR or if I am in the mood and in need to being entertain,I may be listening to the Glenn Beck show on WMPG am radio... a couple of weeks ago two news items caught me by surprised, both of them were race related in one the victim died in the second one the victim lived to tell his story. They are both victims of aggressive behavior base on their race..
The first and the most tragic of the two is the incident involving Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, which as at now (time of writing) have the capability of setting our country on yet another race related debates or riot, in a scale not seen since the time of the OJ Simpson trial or the Rodney king riot..
The other incident, is a story I heard on Glenn Beck and on his website 'The Blaze' involved a 13 year old boy who was set on fire by two 16 year old black teen boys. They doused him with gasoline and lit it and yelled 'this is what you deserved white boy'. The kids family are traumatized, his 5 year old sister went and asked her parent if she will be the next to be set on fire? Violence of this nature is wrong we need to speak against it. When are we going to treat each order with respect?
I think its time for us to stop band aiding our race related issues, America needs to confront its race and class issues not during election campaign season, we can have something like what happened in South Africa or in Sierra Leon.. we need to heal our soul, the soul of America.........
During the 2008 campaign season, I run into an engaging student from a local college volunteering as a foot soldier for the Obama '08 campaign, I decided to play ' The devils advocate'. the young man asked me if I was a registered voter when I answered in the affirmative, he went on to ask me if I was ready to vote for then candidate Obama , I responded and said, first 'I am not a Democrat and why are you campaigning for Obama any way? The young man then shifted into his 'campaign mood' without knowing that I was role 'playing ', his respond, ' When he (Obama) becomes the president, racism will end' I asked him how voting Obama to the white house will suddenly change something that is ingrained into our psyche as a people , a country bonded together by history and yet detached from one another by diversity, Our country is the most diverse in the history of the world and yet we are not fully celebrating that diversity in the most positive way possible.How I wish these young man was right and that one of my heroes, the late Emperor Haillie Selassie of Ethiopia is wrong when in a speech at the UN, he beautifully painted the picture of what the problem of Race and Class, a speech that have more meaning today than ever, below are excepts from the Speech
