The impact of our having a black man as President has been like a small crack in your windshield -
Here we are at the 6 month mark and the crack is spreading. For those tight shirts, it is spreading at an alarming rate. Their attack on the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor has been so unsettling. Their fear of losing ground and the reverse discrimination antics are really criminal.
The Ricky Ricardo fiasco would have NEVER taken place - NEVER TAKEN place - had the nominee been a non-minority.
There has never been any tangible repercussions for the crimes committed against minorities on this soil.
There have been token luncheons, visceral holidays, and a few congressional formal apologies that mean nothing. Empty promises and continued bias and bigotry.
There has been no compensation to give to the Native Americans {I include the Black American in this category} that amounts to what was so brutally taken away.
The fracturing of the family unit in these cultures has never mended and has been left as an open sore on society even today more than 200 years later.
The state of race in our union sickens me - and it sickens me more so every day.
Then I watched Anderson Cooper brilliantly documenting my President as he ventured to Ghana.
Part of what originally turned me away from Barack Obama as a candidate has now made me nod in utter praise while raising my hands up. President Obama is an African-American. He has one parent FROM Africa. I felt he did not have a grasp of my pain or my experience because his father came here willingly to attend school. He was allowed to marry the mother of his child. Not the typical black experience.
I am awed that my President has been thoughtful, eager, educated, and encouraged enough to take the walk in others' shoes. He has grasped, with a hunger, for insight into the other man's experience. From the Arab to the Jew. From the Russian to the whales. Our President has a conscience.
Eloquently he shared with Anderson Cooper what I have felt in my heart my entire life. I have posted the video below for you if you have the time.
The President shared that Black Americans are "more fundamentally rooted in the American experience because they don't have a recent immigrant experience to draw on." The black mixture of native, immigrant and slave has left a rich genetic imprint on this country. Wounds that may never heal from a land founded on the raping and pillaging, conquering and confiscating of others continue to fester, but the reign has ended.
The reign has come to a peaceful end.
The diversity that was spoken of in our Constitution, that has only recently come to fruition, is threatened but it will not falter. The move forward toward a "more perfect union" has momentum now all across this great globe. Freedom will be fraught but not conquered.
Staring in disbelief as senator after senator, pouncing this week at the Supreme Court Nomination hearings has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I am forging on, despite their antics, with the strong unfailing belief that tolerance will come.
"Diversity on the bench is good for America" rang from Judge Sotomayor's lips and hopefully has touched every ear on this planet.
My President's children have rich culture and are witnessing the truest American experience. Their ancestors - white, black, native, slave, immigrant - are all finally sitting in The White House. A picture of diversity, adversity, and victory complete.
A peaceful transition from domination and deceit to tolerance and love -
I won't be watching the rest of the hearings because I just can not stomach the bigotry and the hypocrisy. I have instead summoned strength and endurance and sent it Judge Sotomayor's way. I hope that her place in history will be celebrated. I also plan on writing her a thank you note for her dedication and service and for her grace under fire - I hope you will join me.
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