SimplyMaggies

I have never thought of myself as racist (heck, I married an African-American!). Quite the contrary, actually, I’ve always kind of thought of myself as tolerant and open-minded. And when I went to the US (have I mentioned I was a European?), to my surprise, I discovered that this country is brimming with all kinds of prejudices, racism still being one of the main ones. Absurdly, I find that African-Americans are quite the racists themselves… When most people around the world think of racism, they usually think of it as originating from whites and being directed towards blacks, but I (as a white person) find that quite often the blacks are as racist.

And then there is this whole thing of African-Americans getting away with murder (figuratively speaking, of course) because everyone is so afraid to say anything negative about them in public. What’s up with that?! Aren’t we all supposed to be equal? If one is going to tongue-lash a White, Hispanic or Asian, why not an African-American? Hmm… Also, how come are they allowed to name their media, churches, schools etc “Black whatever…”, e.g. “Black Entertainment Television”, purposefully limiting it to this one race? I am all for freedom of speech or any other freedom for that matter, but I do have a problem with allowing certain groups of people some privileges while somewhat limiting these to others. It simply does not agree with my sense of equality… Imagine if a white community decided to name their TV channel “White Entertainment Television”? They would have been crucified in an instant!

So I ask: Why is it possible for African-Americans to get away with all kinds of transgressions? Is it some kind of compensation for all the terrible crimes committed against them in the past? If so, how come the focus only falls on one part of this whole segregation business? Recently, I’ve found out that during that era there were signs such as “no Mexicans and dogs allowed” posted right along the ones forbidding blacks from entering. How many average Joes know that little fact from the American history?

And take the presidential election, for example. In my opinion it is absolutely fantastic that there is a woman and an African-American as candidates. It’s quite exciting for so many reasons and I would like to believe that Americans are ready for a different kind of a leader. However, there is one disturbing occurrence about his whole business. Have you noticed that both Senator Clinton and Senator McCain are pretty much fair game as far as jokes or any information media can dig up from their past or present, except for Senator Obama. Somehow the only way he’s attacked is through other people around him, e.g. Rev, Wright. Now, he cannot be that pristine! Nobody is. So why hasn’t anyone got enough guts to tell a joke or say something negative about a black public figure? Because they will be instantly accused of racism, and nobody really wants that to happen to them, do they? And there is something profoundly wrong with that picture. We’re all equal, no matter what the color of our skin and we should be treated equally, without exceptions!

I am sorry to say this but racism runs deep in the American society, no matter how much it is swept under the rug… It probably runs deep in the other parts of the world but at least nobody there pretends they have dealt with it and got rid of it…As far as the US is concerned, the ugly face of racism has not disappeared. It has only changed its looks…

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