In case you're in the dark about this title, it comes from one of Eddie Murphy's comedies, "Boomerang". Martin Lawrence's character is disappointed that the waitress called the vegetable accompanying his lunch of choice "Asparagus Spears". He announces that if they had been white, she would have called them "Asparagus tips". For him everything was racial, including the game of pool which was a rather intelligent analysis that, I have to say, was rather convincing.
But this blog is not actually about this movie. This Resurrection Sunday, I am reflecting on the state of this nation in which we live. We are currently in the grips of a very hostile crossroads where America can either take the high road that Dr. King once spoke about or wilt back into the dark ages of the American conscience that is forever blinded by race - forever seeing color first and the human being second. To begin, we are going to jump back a few years to the election of the very first Black President (African American President if you prefer) Barack Obama. Everyone was so proud of this moment for America. Picture it, November 4, 2008 everyone was glued to the television waiting to see if history would be made. IT WAS!!! And then half of America jumped back into the fifties and declared he was not a citizen, he could not be President...he caused the deficit, he caused this and failed to do that. People, he is the President of the United States, and yet, four years later, we are still hearing reports that someone have proven the "birth certificate was forged". Can we, as a nation, really not accept the fact that a natural citizen of this country, one who happens to be Black, can rise to to the role of President? Apparently not because deference fails to be shown. He is disrespected. He wanted to speak to the children of the United States and people actually kept their children home because God forbid this Black Man who went to Columbia University and Harvard Law School be allowed to speak to the children about the value of education. It's appalling that people can be so disrespectful. Just the other day I was listening to an Advertisement on a very conservative station that plays speakers such as Neal Boortz that spoke of how today's government won't be shown the same deference as was shown to the Kennedy Administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis where southern radio stations turned over their frequencies and blasted propaganda toward Cuba. The ad clearly says that this wouldn't happen today and played a clip of the Boortz saying the words "President" and "Obama" in the same sentence made him "throw up in his mouth". This ad is proof that we have done nothing but regress since the President no longer can expect the kind of deference afforded his station in the past simply because he is Black (oh and somewhere behind that you disagree with his politics). I personally disliked the G.W. Bush administration, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't show him respect as the now former President of the United States.
And are we really shocked that Hate Crimes happen still? That laws are skewed in ways that afford a defense to someone who has yet to be charged with a crime against which to assert that defense? Are we shocked that marches for equality and justice still have to happen? Just because there is a monument erected for one of our great Black Leaders does not suddenly mean we the veil of racism has been lifted and we are suddenly better than they were. Want proof? Read the tweets about the young Black girl playing Rue in The Hunger Games. It's disgusting. I have indeed read the book. She was Black!!!! But the tweets about this poor girl are so shameful. I have decided that this is merely an inability, on the part of the ignorant tweety-birds, to accept that they felt such compassion for the death of a young black girl - that it was actually possible that someone so good could be Black. I cried all over again for a young child whose performance has been darkened by the insane racism of readers who clearly blocked out the description of Rue as having dark brown skin and eyes. Did you think she was just very tanned? Are you serious? But this is indicative of the mindset of many people. Race is forever an issue because the nation was, unfortunately, built upon unfounded principles of superiority and stereotypes of the lascivious black woman and the black brute. Come on America! We can be so much greater than what we were; we can be stronger and wiser. I hope.
Can we escape this? Are we forever doomed to just hope for what will never be? And, based on the opening, it is not just a one sided sense that race is always an issue. Black people have stereotypes about White people. My former students are exhibit A of this; they couldn't believe that all White people aren't rich and mean and that I didn't grow up poor and in the projects. For them, that was reality, and it was hard to break the cycle. The character played by Martin Lawrence was convinced that White people were constantly oppressing him and engaging in mini-racist scenarios.
Sigh. I don't really know if I have a specific aim with this post. I just felt like talking a bit about racial issues, as I feel our country is on the precipice of dangerous times- a precipice we've been on before and leapt off of by making dumb choices. The situation in Florida with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman feels eerily like an issue that could spark off another series of riots, not just marches. Is Trayvon the next Latasha Harlins? George Zimmerman the next Soon Ja Du? Are we about to revisit the early 1990s? The climate is tense and people are poised and waiting. I simply pray the right decision is reached. I am afraid for this country if we can't ever get past the racial binary created in 1620 when the first slaves arrived on the shores of America. We have to let the hate die and find the nation resurrected in a new light and way of living.
Praying...and it's just another day for the girl next door.
