RACISM IN AMERICA

“Go back to where you came from!”

“If you don’t like it here, you can leave!”

I’m not sure if you have heard these words before, but I have.  It comes as a warning to those who do not view the world in the same way as others.  Plainly it is racist, there is no other way to describe the context or sentiment that is behind those words of racism being spoken in America.  Go back to where you came from! Despite, the users of those words democracy is about disagreement. We are all supposed to be allowed to hold our own unique and distinct views, until it runs contrary to the dominant viewpoint.

OUR AMERICAN LEADER IN RACISM

Our president has decided to continue to be the aggressor and divisive and then claim to be the victim in the situation once again.  I try not to speak or preach about the man because I would be speaking or saying something every day, every Sunday. But what is alarming to me more and more is that people find his actions and language to be okay.  Few people in a position to challenge this behavior do. This is the problem, more and more people excuse his behavior or even find a reasoning for it. Go back to where you came from! I could just punch you in the face!  I am the best president in the last 20 years! And the list goes on and on.

I was hopeful that after four years of this nonsense even his strongest supporters would find it hard to stand by him.  Well I am wrong, it seems that even more people are rallying behind this. What this leaves in my heart is a void. An emptiness that lets me know that I am not welcomed nor will I ever be welcomed.  It lets me know that people who look similar to me, come from my background and have lived in a similar struggle will not be giving room at the table. To some I am just a NIGGER.

HOW RACISM IN AMERICA FEELS

These two quotes from James Baldwin’s I am Not Your Negro summarize my feelings at this moment. “I am speaking as a member of a certain democracy and a very complex country that insists on being very narrow-minded. Simplicity is taken to be a great American virtue along with sincerity. One of the results of this is that immaturity is taken to be a great virtue, too.”

And, “There are days in this country when you wonder what your role in this country is and your place in it. How precisely are you going to reconcile yourself to your situation here and how you are going to communicate to the vast, heedless, unthinking, cruel white majority that you are here? I am terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people deluded themselves for so long that they really don’t think I’m human. I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. This means that they have become moral monsters and crusaders of racism in America.”

Rev. Rhoden