Friday, August 28, 2015

"The Worst White Man...?" Is That What You're Sayin'

That's right. There is a feeling in America, held by some, that "...the worst white man is better than the best black man". For example, James Earl Ray, is a better man than Dr. Martin Luther King. 

Someone is obviously crazy.

You may have seen a recent news report about the firing of a white Ohio school teacher who was dismissed for his disparaging comments to one of his young African American students.

The young student expressed aspirations to someday become President
of the United States. The teacher's reply, the one that got him 

canned was,"...we don't need another Black president". Yeah, that's what he said. How dare anyone, especially a teacher, discourage a student from dreaming. Dreaming big. 

The question is, where does this sentiment come from? Besides the existence of stark racism itself. 

Part of the answer lies in the fact that volumes of evidence chronicling the accomplishments of Blacks in America over the last 150 years has never been fully, or correctly, represented in print, on the big or small screens, nor the text books in America classrooms. North Carolina actually passed
legislation in the Jim Crow 1920's that outlawed the teaching of African and black history in public schools. Other states followed suit.

Simultaneously, all the negative stereotypes about Blacks have entered the public mentality unabated. As a result, we have six generations of mis-educated school children, who then passed their views to succeeding generations. It has long since become inherent.

When I did my own family research, I found that one of my great grandfathers, who was born enslaved in 1854, was also elected to the North Carolina State Assembly in 1885. As I continued to dig I found that from 1865 to 1898 sixteen former enslaved Africans, from New Hanover County(NC) alone, were elected to state office. And, one was elected to the US Senate. This is the kind of success story that you would think America would be proud to tell. The type of story that inspires hope and determination to succeed against struggle. But, if you are black, that's not the case.

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