Enough with the Racism Already!

Scenario: One black individual is beaten by two whites while a crowd of whites cheer on the attack. Would anybody question if this attack was racially motivated? “OBVIOUSLY, it was about race,” Right?

What if the situation was reversed? We don’t have to imagine because this is exactly what happened when a white Belleville West High School student (Belleville, IL) was beaten aboard a bus on the way to school last Monday by one and then another black student with a crowd of more black students cheering in support.  http://tinyurl.com/knk3cy

This attack has put Capt. Don Sax of the Belleville Police Department at odds with Superintendent Greg Moats over whether or not the attach was racially motivated. Capt. Sax has no doubt it was, but Superintendent Moats is not so sure. I think this story shines a light of hope on modern attitudes towards race, especially when taken in context with this next story.

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Valdosta CIty School Superintendent Dr. Bill Cason (Valdosta, GA) is under fire and may even lose his job because he had the audacity not to show the Obama back to school speech in his schools. http://tinyurl.com/qbyfus

Now, Carson SAYS it is because many of his schools are failing and since the speech did not add to the curriculum, he felt it was not in the best interest of the district as a whole to waste valuable class time with the interruption. This would seem like an acceptable reason since every day, all across America superintendants and principals make decisions about what school assemblies and functions to hold based on their benefit to the students, something I know a lot about as a former motivational speaker who has spoken in well over 300 school assemblies in the US.  It’s may also be important to point out that many of these superintendants and principals across America also choose not to show the speech, but this case is different you see. It is different because the President is black and Superintendent Cason is white and as we ALL KNOW, the only reason a white Superintendant would make such a decision is because of race.

What, you don’t agree? Well, here is what the honorable Rev. Floyd Rose of Valdosta, GA had to say before the most recent school board meeting:

“Here is what I know, here is what you know, here is what the hundreds of people here and out in the street know,” Rose said. “If Dr. Cason were black and 80 percent of the school children in his district were white, and he arbitrarily decided not to allow white children to watch a white president’s ‘back to school’ speech,’ and whites came here tonight in the numbers that blacks have come to protest, he would resign, or be fired. And we are here to demand no less.”

You see it’s open and shut. It’s all about race and Carson should be fired, right? Don’t bother yourself with the fact that another local Superintendant –who is black- also choose not to show the speech. Carson is a racist because –as Rose points out- he did not first talk with every back school board member, teacher and student in the district before making his decision to make sure they were OK with it. It can’t POSSIBLY be that he never saw this as a race issue which is why he never thought to talk to black school board members about his decision. Come on people, Carson is white and as we all know it is impossible for any white person NOT to see color first, right? NO, not right!!!

People have gone insane with race (case in point http://www.newsweek.com/id/214989).

In the first story dealing with the school bus attack, I actually side with the Superintendant in his apprehension to assume the attack was racially motivated. Why, because NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT RACE. It may very well be that the student was attacked because he was white, OR maybe because was unpopular or even because the assailants were just A-Holes. All are horrible reasons but the first conclusion is a lazy one that requires us to fall back on age old stereotypes as opposed to actually forming an independent thought. It is easy to shout race in a crowded room when the people at odds happen to be different ethnicities but in doing so we doom ourselves to never really understanding our differences beyond race because that would mean asking questions BEFORE forming opinions and most of America –especially the media- has no time of that.

In the case of Superintendent Carson vs the Honorable Rev. Rose, if anyone should be out of a job it’s Rose. Not because he asked questions, questions are good. Not even because he already formed his opinions before asking the questions but because he is someone that is looked up to in his community and his self imposed, blind ignorance and race baiting has set Valdosta, GA on fire and may possibly end the career of a man who is likely is anything but racist. Rose feels no need to prove his assertions of race because, as he says “We all know”.  While on the other hand Carson is forced to defend himself against these attacks even though local, black superintendents made the same decision.

In Rose’s imagined scenario about the black supernatant and the white president his conclusion could not be further from the truth. The black superintendent would not be fired because even if any of the white parents did think it was a racially motivated decision, none of them would have to guts to say so since they know they would sound like idiots. Automatically coming to such a poor conclusion based only on race while never looking for any alternatives has become the mantra of the “enlightened”, while it is anything but.

What kind of world do race baiters like Rev. Rose really want? We hear that the goal is a “color blind society” and yet Rev. Rose wants us to check with all the minorities around us before making any decision, even remotely involving race. I would assert that many if not most of us are in fact color blind. Not that we don’t see if someone is Black, White, Asian, etc., but because that bit of information does not enter into our decisions regarding people. I know that seems laughable to Roses and Sharptons of the world but only because they can’t see beyond race. Does that make them racist?

We must wake up and start seeing beyond race or be forced to live lives of miss understandings, fear and stupidity when it comes to dealing with people who look different from ourselves. It is OK to let go of the security blanket of false racism. We all have to grow up sometime, right? Why not today.