Posted by tim in Politics on January 21, 2009

This rant is an exercise of free speech. If you have a problem with it, leave.

Our country inaugurated its 44th president today: Barack Obama. The name, as its stereotypes imply, is that of a black man. Yes, the country populated by the racist rednecks have put a non-white in office.

I'm not racist. I've stated this many times before. I have absolutely no beef against anyone who holds legal citizenship of the country they occupy. I did rant a couple years ago about the influx of illegal Mexican immigrants to my home town, where they filled many jobs that were promised to the unemployed residents of the community. That was an entirely different agenda though.

I attempted to watch the inauguration speech today, and I was quite annoyed about mid-way through it, when the new president began making statements with very strong anti-racism overtones, and was whining about the history of the black man.

A friend of mine made a rant on his Facebook notes about the benediction that was offered by Reverend Joseph Lowery. This benediction hammered on racial equality, which in the current day and age is meaningless. Why? Because there is no "minority" anymore.

Sure, the census data shows that the white man holds a very strong market share in the population of the country. What it doesn't show though is how strongly concentrated these supposed minorities are in the urban areas. It doesn't show that probably 60-70% of my neighbors are Hispanic; It doesn't show that the pharmacist I saw yesterday was a black woman. In these areas, there is absolutely nothing indicating that a particular race is being oppressed, that one race is greater than another.

Being a white man, it's easy for me to make this rant. But why, 46 years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic "I have a dream" speech, do we continue to overemphasize the rights of the non-whites? Are they still being forced to take their laundry elsewhere? Are they still not allowed to sit in the same theater as the white man? Are they not hired for a job because their skin color is not white?

We have laws to protect these people. These laws are very reasonable, and as far as I know are being followed everywhere. Why does the first impression we get of our new president have to be that of a man who feels as though he and his people still aren't being treated fairly?

  • I think the problem lies in the fact that these people want to be oppressed and perhaps even mistreated. I think that they are under the impression that the end of the oppression and of the physical and psychological abuse they have suffered came too easy.

    Either that or they just want to hear someone apologise for what happened.

    • PPMP Sandwich
  • This post is naive and the comment is racist.

  • Who says I'm naive though? Maybe the hardcore supporters are. I'm not saying I'm right, just trying to offer a different perspective.

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