Racism Is Dead In America

A few months ago, in a speech given at Columbia University in New York, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was asked about the status of homosexuality in his country. Mr. Ahmadinejad answered the question saying, “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.” A woman from the audience said that she knew for a fact there were homosexuals in the country because she had homosexual friends in Iraq. The President asked her for her friend’s address so he could check it out for himself. In Iran, if people are discovered to be gay, Islamic law requires that they would be dealt with rather harshly. So they have a don’t ask don’t tell kind of policy. Of course homosexuals exist in Iran.  However, they had better keep their lifestyle under wraps. It isn’t right.  But it is the law of this Islamic state.  Nevertheless, people in this country attack Mr. Ahmadinejad, twisting his words to make it seem that the Iranian President exist in a world of denial. The Iranian President deserves a lot more credit than people are willing to give.

Interestingly though, a lot of people here in this country are willing to walk around with social blinders on and make ridiculous statements that racism is a thing of the past in America. America has laws that outlaw most blatant acts of racial discrimination. So no one in America would dare be a blatant racist and think that they could get away with their acts of subjugation. And yet, somehow, people in the black community are still being passed over for employment opportunities, educational opportunities, suffer inferior medical care, suffer with inferior housing, and are considerably more likely to suffer the heavy hand of the law and justice than their white counterparts. While there may be some exceptions to these conditions this is the general status of the relationship between the black and the white community.

There are a lot of white people who make the claim that the white community is the victim of some affirmative action program and therefore, a victim of reverse discrimination. A white person is very sensitive to the situation where they lose an opportunity to a black person. A white person naturally assumes that they are the best candidate for an opportunity merely because the selected candidate was black. But white people don’t appear to have a problem being the superior candidate but losing out on an opportunity against an inferior white person. Where are the cries of parallel racism or some other fabricated condition when a white person suffers discrimination at the hands of an inferior white person? It’s only when the white person has lost their chance to a black person do white person stand up and take legal action against the unfairness. This in itself is another manifestation of racism.

A white man takes his shotgun and kills two men robbing his neighbor’s house. The white man had called the police but since they did could not arrive in a time satisfactory to the caller he felt justified taking matters in his own hands. He tells the emergency operator that he is going to kill the black burglars. He takes his cocked shotgun outside and keeps his word. The burglars never attacked Joe Horn. They never made a move towards him. In fact, when they turned to run, Mr. Horn shot them in the back. An investigation ensues to determine if Mr. Horn needs to be indicted for murder. But in the meantime, the mainstream corporate culture is hailing this man as a hero.

A black man takes his gun outside to protect his family from a drunken white mob of teenagers who are coming specifically to his home. The white mob is defending the honor of a white girl that has been supposedly threatened by the black man’s son. The white mob told the black man’s son to leave a party. When the son leaves the white mob decides to follow him home to his house. The white drunks make threats to kill Aaron White and rape his mother. They are making the same types of threats that piqued their anger and then some. When the white mob arrives at the White House they continue to make racial slurs and threats. Instead of leaving the leader of the white mob reaches for John White’s gun and is shot in the face. John White is arrested for second degree murder. He is convicted. The mainstream culture is condemning this man as a cold blooded murderer. But racism is said to be dead.

In fact, a lot of people who are members of the dominant corporate culture will say that it is okay for people to be racist in the privacy of their home or as part of their job because nobody is getting hurt. This culture actually believes nobody gets hurt when a white man tells his son to dump his nigger girlfriend if he wants to work in the family business. Nobody gets hurt when the white politician stands before his supporters and makes a racial slur against a lone minority in the crowd in a sea of white conservatives. Nobody is hurt when employers decide that they’ve met their minority quota so decides not to hire anymore minorities for fear that the office environment becomes too ethnically flavored. Nobody was hurt when the nooses were found hanging in the area. It’s just a prank. It’s just clean white wholesome fun. Nobody is being hurt in any of these cases.

What people are actually saying is nobody that we care about is being hurt by these blatant acts of racial discrimination and racial intolerance. The black community is just a group of nobodies that doesn’t require the American collective’s attention. It’s not that the being black is necessarily bad. It’s just that being white is simply better. The dominant culture doesn’t mean to subjugate the black community. It’s just that the dominant corporate culture made mostly of white people and the black people that love them simply likes to support the white community.

However it is justified, whether it’s just a preference to keep things white or whether it is a conscious decision to dominate blacks, the black community suffers. Racism is dead in America. It’s not a twist of words or an interpretation of a phrase. It is a straight out assertion that all is well here and everybody is treated exactly like they should be treated. If I was a racist and didn’t care about black people, if I was a tom and didn’t care about the other people in the black community, I’d be likely to say the same thing. It’s not just a denial, it’s just the way it is.