let's talk about race

It was a weird week, nation-wide. A nasty, racist-tinged wind commenced to blow. Hopefully it doesn't speak of the years ahead. Because of America' treatment of Africans during Slavery and the ugly reign of Jim Crow who's legacy survives, race has always been an undercurrent in America. Few have the courage or honesty to talk intelligently about it.

On Monday, HBO premiered the 1-hr documentary Right America: Feeling Wronged - Some Voices From The Campaign Trail.

"Many interviewees were particularly incensed by what they saw as a lack of any meaningful media attention given to their message during the election campaign and by a perceived media bias against McCain and running mate Sarah Palin. Many of them feel so alienated over cultural and political issues that they say they will never trust the new president, the Congress or the media."

They seem to be a collection of scared, angry, and I feel dangerous, people -- very unhappy that a black man who is, supposedly, "not a Christian"; expected by many to place his hand on the Koran come inauguration day, with clear ties to bin Laden, now living in the White House.
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On Wednesday, the NY Post publishes this:


Civil rights leaders and elected officials said it echoed racist stereotypes of blacks as monkeys. Some have even interpreted it as a call to commit violence against if not assassinate President Obama.
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On Thursday, America's top cop, Attorney General Eric Holder, called the country a Nation Of Cowards.



"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we -- average Americans -- simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial."
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That same day -- Thursday -- the top-most republican official, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, expressed plans to take the neocon message to the inner city with an "off the hook" public relations blitz into "urban-suburban hip-hop settings" in hopes of wooing African-Americans to the conservative cause. He sees the need for his increasingly irrelevant group to "uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets."
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Then yesterday, Friday, former republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes pretty much called for the President's removal from office... by any means necessary:



In view of the current racially-charged place we're in, what exactly did Keyes mean when he said "we're either going to stop [President Obama] or the United States of America is going to cease to exist." This is especially in view of the undercurrent of hatred for a black president amongst upwards of 60 million republican voters; the cartoon showing police having shot and killed a monkey w/ the caption revealing that it wasn't just a monkey, and so forth.

Interesting times. Watch your back, President Obama.