The new racism

I have been reading the news stories and some of the blogs on the Internet.  I have been listening to news programs on televisions and one thing is clear.  Racism has reared its ugly head in a big way in America.  However, it isn’t white against black.  It is just the reverse and I’ll explain why I feel this way.

I grew up in a multicultural city and attended the same school district for my entire 12 years of education.  There was a mix of blacks, Hispanics and white, some Asians and we all got along.  We were best friends and didn’t even look at skin color as an issue.  In fact, the first time I became aware of those things was in the late 60s, the era of free love, do your own thing, and burn your bra and the marches of Martin Luther King.  My mother told me we had some prejudiced relatives, but not to pay any mind to what they said, they were wrong.  That was the first time I became aware there were sections of the country where racism was a disease and people were deeply hurt by it.

But as I grew older, it seemed to me that racism had lessoned.  My life has been full of relationships with many cultures and nationalities and racism was never a thought.  I worked with people of different colors ands often when we became friends I took them home and my mom became their mom.  We were family.

I realize I probably lived in a very forward thinking home and maybe even led a charmed life in that respect.  But even when I married and became an adult nothing changed my opinion.  The people I associated with were considerate of all and I continued to have a United Nations of friends.

Recently, however, during this presidential campaign, the words racist and racism began to come up more often just because one of the candidates is a man of color.  In everything I have heard or read, the subject has not come up from the other candidate’s camp.  There has been no mention of skin color or saying he couldn’t be president because of it.  But from the other camp, there has been a barrage of anti-black sentiment, accusing people of uttering racial slurs, racist code words, threatening violence if their candidate doesn’t win, and accusing the white opponent of wanting to bring back slavery.  It has originated with the candidate himself, making sure he pointed out the other party would mention his blackness but the truth is the only one who mentions it is him.  It is a constant moaning from that camp when in truth it should be a celebration and would be if people weren’t feeling threatened.

Unfortunately, this campaign is taking the same path as the one taken by Obama’s friend (or cousin), Raila Odinga, who ran for president of Kenya in 2007.  Advised by Obama’s personal aid, Odinga ran on a platform of Agent for Change.  Sound familiar?  He pitted Muslim against Christian.  He told the people he was going to help the poor and redistribute the wealth while he himself is very wealthy.  Before the vote, he was already claiming voter fraud when he was behind in the polls.  Then after he lost the election he encouraged riots, displaced over 300,000 people, killed over 1000 and burned Christians in their churches.  All these claims can be seen in videos on U-tube and the articles reporting them are all over the Internet. 

So far we are on track with that election.  Racism is the cry and voter fraud is run rampant.  Do we have riots, death and destruction to look forward to if he should lose?  That is already being threatened so should we base our vote in fear?  Our mainstream media is already predicting riots whether he wins or loses.  This new racism is not the old racism.  It is more vile, more threatening and more insidious than anything we have encountered in many years.  I believe during a time when we should be excited, we have actually taken a major step backwards and during a time when a man’s character and ability is being questioned it is called racism.   The very man of change himself is leading us there.  How sad.

 

 

I have been following the journey of our growing financial disaster in this country for years and especially over the last two or three weeks when everything has supposedly become critical and an emergency.

 

As a working person and now a retiree, I have watched with amazement as rules for borrowing money for a home loan has loosened. When I bought my home we almost couldn’t buy it because we had no credit and it took letters to explain why. Then in the mid 1990s anyone could get a loan, even people on welfare if it was verified they received a welfare check, even though welfare checks are not guaranteed income. I saw then that things had changed and we were on a slippery slope.

 

The bottom fell out of the housing market in 1994 right after we bought our home and we lost more than what we had paid down on it. Houses all around us were selling for ten of thousands less than just the year before. But we stayed put and gradually regained the value.

 

After awhile, housing prices skyrocketed and when we once couldn’t have sold our house for what we owed, suddenly it was worth hundreds of thousand more than we ever could imagine. At that point I knew our home was overvalued and as much as we would have loved a newer, bigger home, we couldn’t begin to afford one and we weren’t willing to go into a risky loan with an adjustable rate.

 

Why do I tell this story? Because I as an average citizen could see there was a growing problem and knew that the housing market was going to sink again to disastrous lows. What I didn’t see is what I didn’t know. There was mass manipulation of lending laws going on since the 1990s. There were massive amounts of money changing hands from the lending companies to the house and senate. There was fraud and corruption all over the place affecting the very people that should have been protected from this, the American people. All of this was going on at high levels and touted as good for Americans yet Americans had no idea how widespread the corruption was. But we are beginning to see what has been happening and very soon will pay for it.

 

My point in all of this is the foreign countries that are our allies. They are angry and their markets are hurting like ours. They have bought into our markets and they are upset. While they try to run their own countries properly, within a budget, our country has gone berserk and hurt everyone around us.

 

I expect more from our country. We are the United States of America, an example to the world of democracy, honesty and generosity. We have been the greatest country in the world and the world expects nothing less than the best from us. We are held to a higher standard and our leaders have become so greedy we have failed not only the citizens of this great country, but the world.

 

The leaders responsible for this fiasco need to be held accountable. If they were in office when this changed in the 1990s they need to be removed from office. If their hands are dirty in any way, remove them. If any of us as individuals would have done what our leaders have done we would be in prison. We have to clean house in our government and give us as well as the world a government to believe in again. We need to restore our integrity.

 

 

John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his choice for his vice-presidential candidate. It was a total shock and surprise to everyone except for the very savvy in politics. She burst onto the scene like a breath of fresh air and brought with her the feeling that maybe there is hope for a change in politics as usual. I believe most Americans are looking for that. Both parties have let down the American people, given into corruption and become so stalemated they accomplish nothing except constant fighting while the country continues to suffer under its weight.

A couple moths ago I heard a host on a television show say she was voting for Obama because he looked like her and he looked like her son and gave him someone to look up to. She indicated that was her main reason for voting for him. I have given that a lot of thought and I could understand it. They are of the same skin color but that is where the resemblance ends. While she is working everyday and raising a family, he is running for office and has many questionable associations that I doubt she would want for her son to be a part of.

But her words rang in my ears when McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate. I began to realize that Sarah Palin looks like me. She’s prettier and a better public speaker, but here is a woman who has balanced a budget at home before she ever held office. She has had to leave her family to go to work even before her political career and has met many of the same challenges every woman does in her lifetime. In this way, she looks like me.

Like most women, she is a problem solver. She just has the ability to do it on a local, state and national level. But we as women have decisions to make every day to keep our family governments running as smooth as possible. We wear many hats of responsibility and many do it alone without the help of a husband or significant other. Sarah Palin was able to take that skill beyond our imaginations with determination and a sense of fair play. Like most women she has a clear sense of what has to be done and she has done it. In this way, she looks like me.

Will she always be right? Probably not. Will she ever say something unfortunate or misguided? At some point I’m sure she will. Will every decision she makes always be the right one? I highly doubt it because she is human. But that’s okay, because in that way she will also look like me.