Nowhere to go but up!

Wow, can you believe it? Pinch me! The nightmare (Bush) is over! I unashamedly wept when Barack took the (muddled) oath of office. A very dramatic moment for us all. Now that the seemingly impossible is fact, seems like the general tenor of the people is "see what we did." We're much better than that, racism has been confronted and is now dead. As a people, we can be justly proud of Barak's achievement, but do we truly think that we have matured beyond our racist past?




In some ways, the national euphoria over Obama as being "our guy" reminds me of the way earlier in our history another African-American was nationally embraced . Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber. I remember my father declaring that "he was a credit to his race." I didn't think anything of it at the time, but on reflection it was not a kind remark because of the implication, that he was okay, but not the "others." But Barak is more than an African-American. He was elected in spite of his race, not because race no longer matters, but because of his vision, character and intellect. He would have been elected president no matter what his race or creed. We need him at this time.



But racism is still our bete noir and not too well disguised. If you don't believe me, then listen to someone who knows. I recently read "Not a Genuine Black Man," a biography of Brian Copeland, KGO radio talk host and stand up comedian here in the Bay Area. Brian grew up in the "progressive" Bay Area during the enlightened 70's. Unfortunately for Brian, his mother moved his family to San Leandro, a white bastion in the region. San Leandroans were proud of their exclusivity and guarded it zealously. There Brian experienced racism of a level that rivals the worst that the South had to offer in the 40's! Granted there were no lynchings, but does getting stoned (hit by rocks) by neighborhood hooligans count? How about being arrested for carrying a baseball bat to the local park, oh, and by the way, he was nine years old at the time!

Intolerance appears in many guises, such as the passage of Proposition 8, banning same sex marriage. A simple majority decided they had the right to discriminate. Brian, in his book, reminds us that in the 60's, after Brown vs. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1965 had made discrimination unconstitutional, that a majority of Californians also passed Proposition 14, which repealed the "Rumsford Act," a California State law prohibiting discrimination in housing! The California Supreme Court rightfully found that initiative to be in violation of the State constitution's equal rights provisions.

So what does all this mean? To me it means we can be proud of this moment (the inauguration of Barak Obama) but that the struggle to rise above our racist past and intolerance for rights of minorities is not over.

We have no where to go but up, and it is still a long way to go.