(Thanks to Craig Powell....)
"When I was a kid, we said that we were precluded from going to certain neighborhoods because of the color of our skin... Now the neighborhoods are the neighborhoods of ideas, you're not supposed to be there because ... of the color of your skin.
- Clarence Thomas
Yesterday I posted a screen grab of a post from Wonkette showing Barack Obama with his feet propped on his desk in the Oval Office. The post noted that some on the Right were apoplectic over the "disrespect" shown by Obama for the office he occupies. Hmm.... Well, as it turns out, Barack Obama is not the first President to be photographed in such a relaxed pose in the Oval Office. Of course, George W. Bush and Gerald Ford were Republicans, so they get a free pass, eh? Obama, by contrast, is a Democrat and...even worse...an (uppity) African-American. How DARE he recline so thoughtlessly in the People's House? How DARE he show such disrespect for the office of the President? How DARE he be...well, black??
There was a time when I'd actually managed to delude myself into thinking that perhaps we'd manage to bury racism. I'd thought that perhaps we'd evolved to the point where we could get past skin color and race and all the other artificial divisions we conjure up to keep the "OTHER" down. Jeebus, am I naive or what?? Yes, I suppose that we have made certain progress in some quarters, but racism never really went anywhere. It just went underground, waiting patiently for the time when it could come out into the light and once again poison the public dialogue.
There are still those who believe that power political should and by right should automatically accrue to White Males. Non-Whites and women of any color need not apply. Sadly, there are far more of these knuckle-dragging troglodytes among us than I'd imagined.
