Chocolate New Orleans
In talking yesterday about the rebuilding of New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin said, ''It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans -- the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans.''
Now, I’m trying to imagine a situation where a city with a white majority, someplace like Bakersfield, California, for example, is devastated by a natural disaster, maybe an earthquake. Now I’m imagining Harvey Hall, the white mayor of Bakersfield, talking about the rebuilding of the city and saying, ''It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild Bakersfield -- the one that should be a vanilla Bakersfield. This city will be a majority European-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have Bakersfield any other way. It wouldn't be Bakersfield.''
How loudly do you think the cries of “racism” would be heard across the land? We all know the cries would be loud and clear, yet Mayor Nagin gets a pass.
If we are ever going to completely eradicate racism in this country, a goal of which I assume Nagin would be in favor, we have to stop racism on both sides. You can't have a color-blind society when you have a mayor talking about rebuilding a "chocolate" city. You can't have a color-blind society when you have people like Michael Moore making the claim that people were left on their roofs for five days after Katrina because they were black. You can't have a color-blind society when you have people like Harry Belafonte attacking blacks who rise to the highest levels of success, calling them "Uncle Toms."
It's not conservatives who perpetuate racism in this country, and if racism is ever going to be truly a thing of the past, it's the liberals who are going to have to let it die.
Now, I’m trying to imagine a situation where a city with a white majority, someplace like Bakersfield, California, for example, is devastated by a natural disaster, maybe an earthquake. Now I’m imagining Harvey Hall, the white mayor of Bakersfield, talking about the rebuilding of the city and saying, ''It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild Bakersfield -- the one that should be a vanilla Bakersfield. This city will be a majority European-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have Bakersfield any other way. It wouldn't be Bakersfield.''
How loudly do you think the cries of “racism” would be heard across the land? We all know the cries would be loud and clear, yet Mayor Nagin gets a pass.
If we are ever going to completely eradicate racism in this country, a goal of which I assume Nagin would be in favor, we have to stop racism on both sides. You can't have a color-blind society when you have a mayor talking about rebuilding a "chocolate" city. You can't have a color-blind society when you have people like Michael Moore making the claim that people were left on their roofs for five days after Katrina because they were black. You can't have a color-blind society when you have people like Harry Belafonte attacking blacks who rise to the highest levels of success, calling them "Uncle Toms."
It's not conservatives who perpetuate racism in this country, and if racism is ever going to be truly a thing of the past, it's the liberals who are going to have to let it die.
posted by Bryan Alexander | 3:32 PM
2 Comments:
You can't have a color-blind society and stay in the limelight if you are Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or any of the other hatemongers.
Great insight, Peter. I inadvertently deleted the question that I had raised that Peter was responding to, so here it is again.
Question for Chris, Peter, or whoever else would like to answer. Why do so many in the black community continue to listen to Jackson, Sharpton, Nagin, et al.? They have never offered anything real or lasting in terms of anything to help minorities, yet they continue to remain influential in the black community.
Post a Comment
<< Home