Pointing Out A Spade

By Cherina Jones

As Barack Obama pushes past all of those in disbelief of the possibility of his presidency, there is indeed something for whites to fear: their misjudgment about blacks. This country was built on the stilts of racism, and although many of us are upright forward thinking black and WHITE men and women, this election is sifting out the racists.

Someone directed me to a photo of a man on a bike who had a Mccain/Palin bumper sticker or license plate card (could not tell which). He wore a T-shirt that said “Nigger PLEASE!!! It’s a White House.” I typically laugh these things off. I chalk it to ignorance and neatly package excuses for these kinds of people in the vein of “they don’t know any better.”

But they do.

The notion of Barack Obama being president, was just that—a notion. Now that Obama is two steps away from the White House, white people are running scared. It is the kind of scared that played itself out during pre-reconstruction, in the form of black bodies hanging from trees, or in the form of water hoses brutally dosing black skin during the civil rights movement. Blacks have never been subordinate to whites. It is a myth that had to continue to live in order for white supremacy to survive this long. All of America and most of the world is inundated constantly with negative images of the black community in the media. The media is where we get most of our information, so it is not surprising how far preposterous myths can travel. Negativity is alive and well in all communities, especially white communities. Blacks are no more violent and no less intelligent than whites, yet in many parts of this country people still believe that. It’s not sad, it’s shameful and a reflection of America.

Let’s call a spade a spade: white people don’t want to lose their privilege. Since the genesis of this country there has been a white man ahead of it. The idea that a black man can and will be ahead of this nation threats white privilege (not to say that his presidency will end white privilege). The soon to be fact of a black presidency completely negates the myth of blacks being subordinate, blacks being less intelligent, blacks being violent animals. The makeup of America is smearing and the truth is coming to light, and not a plastic surgeon in this world can embellish what America has been passing along as truth.