Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.
Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.
This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks - with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?
End of column.
What????????? So we should be grateful for being shipped over here, enslaved, beaten, raped, mamed, robbed, humiliated, hanged and hindered for over 400 years? What?????
What his column fails to mention is that all that so-called freedom we got wasn't GIVEN to us. We FOUGHT for it long and hard, and because his comments prove that racism is still very much alive with a strong pulse in this country, we're STILL fighting!
Fighting for that freedom came with many price tags marked by dead bodies hanging from trees burned to death, burning crosses in front yards, strongly running water from fire hoses, biting by dogs and beatings by the very laws governed to protect us all.
And all those programs he talks about...hmmm...
Those were not programs originally even available to black people because for the longest time, we weren't even people, and therefore, didn't deserve assistance or consideration. Rights? How can you give right to property? How can you give rights to people, who even after being emancipated, you still considered as less than human?
If you let Pat tell it, we've never done anything in this country or for this country.
Hmmm...how about fighting in wars overseas just to come home to still have to walk through the back door.
How about fighting to preserve everyone else's freedoms while we had none?
How about the major inventions we never got proper credit for?
How about the lack of recognition of what REALLY happened during slavery right here in America but all kinds of recognition for Hitler's dastardly deeds in Germany?
How about dying if found to be educated?
How about stripping us of our native tongues?
Oh, there's more. But I'll let you all touch those bases.
And don't even get me started on what was perpetrated upon the Indians...the true "Native" Americans.
