Exactly one presidential term ago, America had a new tag line to accompany the celebration of a heroic decision by a fearless country, which for the first time stepped outside its comfort zone and elected a minority as its president. It was our attempt to clean our conscious and move into a new era in the relationship between us as a nation and one of the prominent groups in the founding of this country, its our attempt in trying to say to the world, Oh yes we have come a long way, we are grown ups and we are not afraid of our past, we are ready to embrace it and we are doing that the American way with glitter and lights , we even came up with a new fancy political tag line , ‘Post racial ‘ the only problem is , the tag line is only glossy when printed in the pages of magazines and newspapers, poetic only when its being used by the many radio and TV commentators, on our air waves…… in reality there is nothing like post racial America and the past four years have just proven that school of thought to be right.
Every thing have a good and a bad side and I also agree that things can get worst before they get better and Obama’s election did just that , research have shown that racial intolerance have increase since then. Discrimination against blacks have been higher in the past four years than in any recent past.
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| Obama's effigy hanged,Goldsboro NC |
We know that presidential campaigns stimulates people’s emotion, this year's presidential election did more than that, all you need to do is log into YouTube and see what people are saying about the president in terms of his race. I want to believe in the principles of America again, I want to believe in our constitution again, I want my daughter to grow up in a country where ‘post racial’ really means something not a mere slogan… Those of us that believe in that need to work and fight for it .
May be I am too much of an idealist to even notice that we are not ready yet, we have to find a way and have a nationwide open and honest conversation on how we treated the minorities amongst us and how to create a future of mutual respect for people who are different from us. Just before I finished writing this entry , a friend of mine in North Carolina posted disturbing photograph of a hanged Obama effigy, which makes me feel like I wanna puke, so much for ‘Post Racial’ politics, Wake Up America, lets vote and save the integrity of this great country…...
I couldn't agree with you more in your stance on the need to discuss racism and move to a period of "post racism" in this country. But may I ask you to reconsider posting the image of such a horrifying efigy? When you post the image, you are, in fact, perpetuating the hatred, even if you are doing it to promote intelligent, critical thinking. A lighter example of what I am trying to say is that if I want to curtail the consumption of junkfood I wouldn't advertise for junkfood companies by using their images. It is enough to use words without the imagejunkfood is terrible for us because.....". Think about pornography--if I have to SHOW the pornographic film in order to send the message across that it is not a productive force in society, I have, in fact, perpetuated its production and re-production. Have I not?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feed back, I bet to disagree, non of the things you have stated are the same to the image I posted, I think images are powerful, hence me using it to make people get a complete picture of my message. Which is about the Race, and also to get people to go out there and vote..
DeleteBut I get your message, it is not the best way to carry my message across,,, not bad either..
thanks for the post, Pious. I think we are finally ready. Growth is rarely a graceful process. Teenagers grow and for a while they crash into and trip over everything because they're not used to their new bodies. (And let's be honest, a lot of them are damned ugly to look at! haha) Our growth isn't pretty, but we're getting there. I agree that we're not in a "post-racism" world, and I thank you for posting the photo. We need to be reminded that there's still a lot of hate out there and that just because an exceedingly eloquent, intelligent, over-achieving, and charismatic black guy made it to the White House it doesn't mean that every black kid in America has a fair chance at greatness yet.
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