If Martin Luther King were alive today he would be accused of playing the "race card"

Bjorn Against

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Sat Mar-15-08 10:09 AM
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If Martin Luther King were alive today he would be accused of playing the "race card"

Edited on Sat Mar-15-08 10:13 AM by MN Against Bush

As a white man I have never experienced what it is like to be black. It would be really easy for me to ignore the reality of what it means to be a minority in this country. It would be really easy for me to pat myself on the back and congratulate myself because I have never marched down the street with a white hood over my head, I never burned a cross in a person's yard, and I have never yelled out the "n-word" when I saw a black man walking down the street. It would be so easy for me to say, "I am not a racist!" and then go and condemn people like Pastor Wright for bluntly speaking out on issues of race in the way that he did.

Yes, it would be easy for me to do that, but it is always much more difficult to try to understand the reality that so many have tried so desperately not to see. I usually don't notice it when I walk into a store and I am not being followed around by security because they are too busy watching the black man, I usually don't notice it when I am not being pulled over by cop because my skin color makes them presume I am innocent, I usually don't notice it when people automatically assume that I am more qualified to handle a task than another person who just happens to be black. It is so easy to not notice the ways in which I am treated better by society because of my skin color, it is much more difficult to imagine what it would be like to live a life in which I had to deal directly with racism.

There is racism all around us, and most of us don't see it. Blacks are still being treated differently by our court system, they are still way more likely to be sent to prison for using the exact same drugs that whites are also using. They are more likely to have their names purged from the voter rolls. And when it comes time for the city to make new infrastructure improvements it is usually the white neighborhoods that get those improvements first while the black neighborhoods are left to deteriorate.

Yet the moment the black community points out these discrepancies they are accused of playing the "race card". If they point racism they are told they are playing this race card to their own advantage, and they are left asking themselves how they ever got this race card when they were never even dealt a hand in the first place. They know damn well that their race has never been an advantage for them in American society, and yet they constantly hear white people complaining about them having a race card that they can play.

And when a man like Pastor Wright speaks out and says what many of them are feeling, all of a sudden white people are screaming about racism. When white people are complaining about being the victims of racism all of a sudden these charges of using the race card disappear, and in fact it is usually the very people who scream loudest against the use of the race card in pointing out racism against blacks who seem most upset about racism against whites.

As a white person myself though I have to wonder how many of the white people who are screaming about Wright being racist against them are truly and honestly hurt by anything Wright said. I am seeing a lot of mock outrage, and I am doubting that there are too many people right now who are in tears because they have been hurt so badly by anything Wright said. I am not seeing people go through the type of pain that real racism brings over these comments, in fact I am seeing a lot of people gleefully denouncing Wright knowing full well that they can use his words to their advantage. It makes me feel ashamed to know that there is still so much racism in this world and yet we are getting up denouncing the words a man who has been a victim of racism his entire life.

Before anyone accuses me of being some die-hard Obama supporter, I need to make it clear that I am not. I did not vote for Obama in my caucus, and instead voted for a man who had already dropped out of the race. I have been very critical of Obama in the past, and there is not a single criticism I have made of him that I do not still stand by today. Just because I am not a huge fan of Obama though that does not mean I will not defend him from the filth that has been thrown at him in the last week. First he was attacked by Ferraro on the basis of his race, then when Ferraro's racism was called out he was accused of playing the "race card". Just a couple days later though the same people accusing him of playing the race card were now accusing him of being racist against whites. It sickens me, and I am not going to stand by silently while people engage in these repulsive attacks.