Black and White

Remember the old Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney song, Ebony and Ivory. It sang about how the keys of the piano "live together in perfect harmony" why can't we? Such an idyllic view of what humans operate like-- or more how some would like to think can be. When does it fall apart? When do we start seeing each other as a skin color and not a person? Is it when power comes into play? Perhaps when economics are threatened or we realize there are real cultural differences and they scare us? Marriage? When do the hopeful words that we are all the same dissolve into a puddle of fear and anger?

Three police officers were just found innocent of shooting an unarmed black man full of holes. A black celebrity, on three misdemeanor charges of not filing income tax forms, got three years in federal prison. The last year has been full of such stories-- threatened hangings, beatings. Each time different groups see what happened through different filters and it's as if night to day how they come out interpreting it.

The presidential campaign has brought racial issues smack dab to the front of the bus. A lot of white voters, 19% in some exit polls for Pennsylvania, said they would not vote for a black person for president. That's just those who admit it. Some use the excuse well the blacks are voting on race.

Well if they are, it'd be after many years of voting for whites, years where they never said, I won't vote for a white (because then they would not have been able to vote at all). Little by little people of other skin hues, black, brown, yellow, red, are having options; but it hasn't been that way for long. For generations it has been whites making the rules and people of color having to trust those rules would be fair-- often they weren't. Are some whites now afraid of payback?

Some say they would vote for a black if it was someone who thought like a white. A term that has come to be despised seems to cover when they are saying it would be okay-- when he/she are Uncle Toms. That was the name given to the blacks who helped their white slave owners to keep the others in control. It wasn't so much that the Uncle Tom was a bad person but rather that he had chosen to get power by getting along. Do what the power structure wants. Do not make waves. Do not move to the front of the bus. Don't drink from that water fountain, demand school fairness, or job equality. Some whites think that is the way to power also.

It isn't just with skin color where we have unfairness. McCain reminded us all about how it is for women. When he explained why he didn't vote to allow women to sue for equal pay beyond a limited span of time, he said too many lawsuits. Now the fact that many women might fear suing because they would lose their jobs, might not even know of the disparity until later, that didn't worry him.

McCain went on in his pious tone how women need more training and education. Interesting from a man who doesn't believe in paying for government programs; but putting that aside, the particular issue here was a woman who WAS doing the job of the men. She was doing more than the job of most of the men but she was receiving less pay than the poorest performing man on the job. McCain's platitudes were just that.

Now we come to Barack Obama and his race problem. When he wanted to run for political office, he had to have more diverse experience than he had had. A lot of politicians wouldn't worry about that, but he was in a unique position. He is a half black man (who looks all black) raised by white women for the most part in Hawaii where race isn't like it is here on the mainland. Even his university experience didn't give him diversity given he received his education at Harvard, a very elite, Ivy League school, partially on a scholarship, partly working, and partly with loans. He had not had a typical black experience in this country.

From what I understand, Obama went to Chicago for that experience. He met people for whom right now he's taking flak for even knowing. The attitude of many whites is don't know people who are different than you, who think other ways, who look different. I guess it must be something like the fear of heterosexuals that if you allow homosexual marriage, it'll be catching?

So is that why he should not have gone to an inner-city church that had prison and other programs among the poorest neighborhoods, why he should not have listened to Reverend Wright, a firebrand, with some controversial sermons but no terrorism that is suspected; or have as a neighbor and early supporter William Ayers a weathermen; or a shady businessman, Tony Rezko? (Check out those three links if you are not familiar with these stories as they are being used to indicate a lot of things that the facts don't validate. One thing about the internet is we can check things. Do not count on the media to do it for you. They run with the waves.)

Is the fear of whites that if you even know people who are different, you will be tainted by them. You will do what they do? It doesn't seem to worry people that McCain has actively sought out support from right wing wackos, like Reverend Hagee, (go to the end of that link to see Hagee's quotes), a pastor who believed until it got politically inexpedient that god destroyed New Orleans over homosexuality. (More about John McCain's dangerous friends.) Is this all okay because McCain isn't black?

Without a doubt Obama's pastor was preaching, at least a few times in his thirty years, resentment against America, blaming whites for black problems. Is there any evidence that Obama himself shared those beliefs? In terms of illegality, there is nothing. He has admitted a mistake in allowing an apparent slumlord businessman to help him enlarge his home's lot (where he paid full appraised price) and that's it. A long way from the kinds of things that McCain has in his background, but for McCain that's not worrisome. Why not?

Is the real fear, with people like Rush Limbaugh, that Barack Obama will turn our country over to Arab terrorists? Do they believe because he felt a flag pin was shallow that he therefore must hate America? Do they honestly think he doesn't pledge allegiance to the flag because he didn't do it for the anthem (where most people don't)? That's what is going around this country that he refuses to pledge allegiance because of one photo where McCain and Hillary didn't know or else wanted to play it safe. Do you think the Limbaughs of the world really fall for that stuff or just hope enough voters will?

Debunking the false Obama smear

Obviously, I decided to use these recent ocean photos because they represent black and white along with unharnessed power. As the storm hit the coast, the waves were high, wind blowing, breakers coming from all directions. When the light was just right, the center of those waves would look greenish but overall, the sea was pewter gray, black or white. You would think this was taken with black and white film but it's full color-- the color of an Oregon storm. The ocean sometimes looked metallic.

People of diverse racial backgrounds, other cultures, religions, or genders can work together to build a good world, to create the kind of power that nothing can stand against. They can if they see each other as people. The other options are fighting, fear and all of us ending up in a puddle of mud.

(All telephoto shots of the wave action can be enlarged.)