From Letters to the Editors @ Fort Worth Star-Telegram - today
How racism works
What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said "I do" to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?
What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
What if Obama were a member of the "Keating 5"? What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.
- Kelvin LaFond, Fort Worth
yo, that post is hardcore. funny that you put that up--while i was studying today, i started thinking about an article i read over the weekend that mentioned mccain's infidelity to his first wife (and of course, the article glossed over it...meanwhile, over 10 years after the fact, the media is *still* going after bill clinton for being unfaithful) and other aspects of his life that are extremely unsavory and thought that i need to write a blog post detailing them...of course, civil procedure totally sucked up my lunch period today and prohibited me from writing that post =(
ReplyDeleteAmerica has already put 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling of sexism so far in 2008--let's hope that America can put many millions more cracks in the ugly wall of racism that divides America...the same wall in which heroic individuals such as Colin Powell, MLK, Jesse Jackson, Condy Rice, and Rosa Parks have already placed deep and significant cracks.
thanks for putting this up!