Racism is Alive & Well

Nikki Haley made a statement that there is no racism in the United States.

She said this after claiming that her life is a testament to courage because she overcame racism when she was young.

Huh?

She also changed her name because it’s an ethnic name that won’t play well with her party’s base.

Let’s see:

The leader of the GOP, and the entire party, really, talks about how the blood of the country is being tainted because not everyone is white.

The fear over immigrants is most certainly rooted in racist tendencies, and good old Nikki herself forgot to mention that slavery was a reason for the civil war.

Not to be topped, another GOP member said yesterday that slaves were escaping a worse life when they were brought over here to work.

As the kids say:

WTF!

And one of the most interesting takes on racism came from my buddy Bruce who witnessed his band mate, Clarence Clemons being wildly celebrated while he was on a stage in the early days.

The band hung around the bar afterwards and Bruce noticed that there was a skirmish in the area where Clarence was seated.

By the time Bruce got there, Clarence was gone. Bruce found the big, black man sitting on the front of their car in the lot.

Clarence told Bruce that the white men who surrounded him in the bar called him the N-word repeatedly.

“They were just cheering for me on the stage, and ten minutes later, they’re comfortable calling me that? Why?”

Bruce, who was a young man at the time said:

“I’d like to tell you that those guys are just assholes and that you shouldn’t pay attention to them, but it’s worse than that. There are white men who unwittingly teach their children, whether they know it or not, that because they’re white, they’re somehow above all others. Some people don’t even realize that they’re teaching it to their kids.”

That statement hit me hard.

I heard that story and I immediately texted my boys.

I said:

“If I ever gave you the impression that you’re somehow better than someone because of the color of their skin, I never meant to. Treat all men the same. Judge them by the man they are and not what you may think about their ethnicity.”

I texted that because, as Bruce said, somewhere along the way, I may have unknowingly given my boys a bad impression.

Thankfully, all of my boys answered the same way:

“I never felt like you were racist.”

And, I was naive about it all.

When Obama was elected I was proud of the fact that we were making progress.

The rise of the next president taught me that I was horribly wrong believing that.

Racism is alive and well and thriving here in America, and sadly, I may never see the progress that needs to happen.