Remembering separate drinking fountains

Once you contribute to the Obama campaign, you've got a daily email friend. Sometimes I find the requests for additional donations off-putting.

Not today.

They wanted me to max out our pre-nomination giving (deadline is midnight tonight). At first I wasn't sure whether we could afford it.

But then I thought of watching Obama's historic nomination by acclamation yesterday. Many black delegates to the convention were moved to tears. How far this country has come, they told a CNN reporter.

Oh, yes. For sure.

Laurel and I were talking last night about the civil rights movement in the '60s, which, being of a certain age, we can remember with teen-aged clarity.

She said, "That wasn't so long ago – when blacks had to use separate drinking fountains in the South. And now a black man is the Democratic nominee for president of the United States."

I did a little math in my head. "Over forty years; that's quite a while. We're pretty old. To lots of Americans this is ancient history, the Jim Crow era."

It's amazing, really. And disgustingly shameful. That well past the midpoint of the 20^th century a large portion of the United States was still blatantly treating blacks as second class humans.

So when I pushed a "Support the Ticket" button on an Obama web site contribution page, sending my donation off into cyberspace, I felt that I was doing a lot more than helping a presidential campaign.

With those dollars, I was saying I'm sorry.

Not that I was personally responsible for the discrimination that minorities have had to struggle against. Though in a way I am.

Watching Clinton make the motion to have Obama nominated by acclamation, I thought back to my high school days in central California.

How us white kids who lived in Three Rivers, up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, would sit on the bus that took us to Woodlake Union High School, down in the San Joaquin valley, and make fun of the Hispanic neighborhoods that we'd pass.

Except we didn't call them "Hispanics."

They were spics, taco-benders, other names I can't recall. I wasn't one of the leading name-callers, but I didn't speak back to those who did. No one did. We all were passive, if not active, accomplices in looking down on a Mexican culture that we couldn't care less about understanding.

We weren't as bad as white Southerners. Bad enough, though.

I can't undo the past. I can't apologize to the Hispanic classmates who we made fun of. (It was a two-way street though; most of the Spanish I learned in high school consisted of swear words directed at us Anglos in the locker room.)

However, I can support Obama. It's something. Not enough.

But something. Because as I heard black delegates say yesterday, this is more than an election; it's a movement. A movement toward genuine equality.

Comments

[condor]

Brian wrote: "With those dollars, I was saying I'm sorry."

--Were you in the Klan? Probably not. You owe no appology for the racist transgressions of those in the past or present. Don't lay a bleeding heart guilt trip on yourself. Do you also believe European-Americans should pay reparations to African-American decendants of slaves because of the actions of people who lived two centuries ago? Are you responsible for 18th- 19th century slavery because your skin is white in the 21st century?

Brian wrote: "Because as I heard black delegates say yesterday, this is more than an election; it's a movement. A movement toward genuine equality."

--This is racist. Electing a person on the basis of skin color. Must we have affirmative action for presidents?

We have black:
-mega-celebrities
-multi-millionaires
-billionaires
-heroes
-doctors
-professors
-engineers
-lawyers
(we even have black lawyers who can get criminal charges dropped for a black man who obviously murdered a white woman)
-judges
-congressmen
-business CEOs
-generals
-supreme court justices
-secretaries of state (and a woman at that)
-a major party presidential nominee..

...and this country hasn't made enough progress that we feel a guilty compulsion to elect a candidate because he is black? There will always be racial prejudice just like there will always be crime, but any black with the talent and drive can achieve whatever they want in this country. No need to prove it with a candidate who has yet to prove himself.

[Dan]

Obama doesn't want your goddamn pity-party guilt trip. Quite frankly, he doesn't need it. If this is indicative of why people are supporting him, this country is absolutely screwed. Only democrats are allowed to talk about race in this election, and since you opened it up, let's get it all out. You are either voting for him because of the color of his skin, or because you feel guilted into it because someone, somewhere did something shameful...and you want to selfishly be able to say "Well, I'm not like that because I gave money to a black man running for president."

If you have other reasons to vote for him...and you probably do...this would be a fine time to talk about how it has nothing to do with the color of his skin or the guilt you feel.

The next level of tragedy is when you vote to give everyone else's hard-earned money away to [insert white liberal guilt cause here] to make yourself feel even better.

Jackass.

[Harry Vanderpool]

Dang, Brian!
Why do you wrestle so with guilt?
You are a good man!
You work very hard for your state and local community.
You and your fine wife Laurel have paid your dues in life and owe no excuses to anyone for anything.
And while you articulate the foolishness of the various superstitions; I just cannot understand how you can get sucked into the guilt hell that you have outlined.
I don't want to embarrass you, but Brian, you are WAY smarter that that!!!
You have allowed your head to be drawn into the fog.
Hey, there is going to be a revival meeting out in Turner soon. A traveling evangglist will end up with throngs of people flooding to the alter at the end of the service to "Pray through".
How 'bout we go?
Tears will be flowing down your face like everyone else in the crowd. Hands will be waving in the air.
THANK YOU JESUS!!!
THANK YOU JESUS!!!
THANK YOU BARRY, er..uh,, I meant JESUS!!!

What??!! You have no need to confess all of your transgressions at the alter?
Then why do you feel compelled to confess them to B. Hussein Obama?!!!

Oh and just so you know:
As a neighbor and a fellow American, you owe me no apoligys for anything. You are a good neighbor!

Now, Vote for the best leader of the country and forget Billy Graham.

[Brian]

condor, Dan, Harry: I found Obama's nomination deeply moving. I resonated with the blacks who saw this as a wonderfully positive sign that this country is moving beyond it's divisive, discriminatory past.

What I felt moved me to write what I did. I don't feel guilty. Saying "I'm sorry" wasn't an equation of me with the KKK. Rather, it was a reflection of the fact that in my high school days I was prejudiced in some of the same ways southerners were biased against blacks.

So in that sense I felt a need to say "I'm sorry."

[Dan]

Brian, I think I was unnecessarily harsh with my reaction. I apologize. Now, as a conservative, I can't pass the opportunity to make a point, either. You were the person I attacked/criticized/offended. You were the person I apologized to. If I decided to wait 20 or 30 years and apologize to someone completely unrelated to my original offense...it might make me feel good, but it does nothing to heal you - the person I really hurt. This form of penance seems somewhat self-serving.

As humans, we need to either (1) stop doing and saying things that hurt others, or (2) when you do say and do things that hurt others, make every immediate effort to direct apologies and efforts to those who were hurt...and not wait 30 years and let those things fester in them, or in us.

[kem]

Interesting. I have a picture of myself and my sister standing in front of a 'whites only' sign. HIDEOUS! I would send it to school with my kids on MLK day.

This is not out of guilt or shame at all---it is a reminder to us, of where we were as a nation and in general attitudes just a few decades ago. I am sure that there are any number of Germans who are ashamed of their ugly history as well. AND many work very hard to keep it from happening again.

Remember, to avoid reliving the past we must study and learn from it; not ignore it! Americans don't do so well with that as we want to live in a 'happy place'.

YES, I am voting Obama/Biden 08, but not because I feel ashamed of that stupid picture or my mama was a racist or whatever---it is because I am proud of what that American has done and said, of who he is, and I want my America to be like that image. I feel the hope! I dread the images I see in the faces of those other two--the hate and the nastiness and the lack of manners... They hurt my heart, while Obama stirs my soul. That is that.

And one more thing: Jesus was a pretty good community organizer himself, wouldn't you say?! Thanks for the box...