Does Race Matter

Since the G-Man got away with murdering Trayvon Martin or should I call it an assassination or the court’s decision regarding the controversial “Stop and Frisk” polices and surely the recent Supreme Court decision that said black voters don’t count begs the question or at least consideration of thought – “Does race matter?”

This is a conversation most Caucasians struggle with, at least openly, whereas most seem afraid to talk about the subject of race and view the topic as “nothing to see here”. They said the same thing in 1963! They know and clearly understand racial inequity is an issue that needs to be addressed but based on a biased they believe is their right to have control and an inherent privilege to be superior the clock is being turned back every day. Then maybe the hands of time, in their mind, never really moved.

The stories based in fact of oppression, racism, segregation and even slavery are very real. Most African Americans have experienced it in one form or another and know it is real. Of course, slavery was not physically visited upon African American people today by law but the tactics used mentally and institutionally is “slavery and by any other name is SLAVERY”.

You cannot view the history of America and not see that race has and still does matter. The obvious differences can be found in neighborhoods, employment, schools, and surely in every aspect of the legal system – causes one to ask why. I read a poll recently that said the Trayvon Martin story differed tremendously along political and racial lines. Many said, the murderer had a right to kill this child (white-conservatives) and others say absolutely not (Black-liberal). Personally, I side with the sane and not insane.

More to the point, there was a time in my life where I saw police trample peaceful protesters on horseback, marchers beaten in the streets, and fire hoses turned on people. During the Civil Rights era African-American citizens, who were called Negro’s at the time, where only asking for and in most cases begging for the basic human right to live. Then a few years prior to that, in the first half of the last half century, black men where lynched by the hundreds for entertainment. Yet, most of white America believed and supported by law these actions as just.

Was this colorblindness that dictated these policies that allowed justice which is blind to permit the wretchedness of racism to exist in the hearts and minds of people? You may realize that whenever the conversation of race comes up; there is the usual quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “we want to judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” If the issue of race was only that simple – the world would be a better place, but it’s not. So let’s talk about it – honestly – and take the necessary steps to correct the wrongs.

The historic March on Washington for jobs and freedom occurred fifty-years ago and another march is planned in commemoration in a few weeks asking for the same thing fifty-years later. African Americans see matters of race from a completely different perspective. When you’ve felt the brunt of this wretched ideal you know it and see it.

Look at it this way, there was an old man who was bent over. Someone told him to stand up. The old man had been bent over so long – he said, “I thought I was!” Most minorities today do not wish to wait another fifty-year’s for that promise to be realized. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…