Some notes on racism

Reading the "new" Kurt Vonnegut book, Armageddon In Retrospect, a collection of unpublished essays and speeches and letters, and came across this gem from his last written speech, scheduled for a year ago yesterday, April 27, 2007 (not delivered because he fell and hit his head and died):

The most spiritually splendid American phenomenon of my lifetime is how African-American citizens have maintained their dignity and self-respect, despite their having been treated by white Americans, both in and out of government, and simply because of their skin color, as though they were contemptible and loathsome, and even diseased.

I have always admired Vonnegut as a model citizen and held his political persuasions as beacons, and this statement is a great example of why. With this in mind, Obama's proximity to the presidency became again surprising to me. I am not surprised that America is seemingly now ready to let a black man lead the country, but that a black man would even want to be the leader of the country responsible for the things it has done. Not that that in any way gives him more claim to the presidency, but the weight of his desire should be acknowledged in context. As should Clinton's.

While we're on the topic, I feel I should point to this article by a guy named Tim Wise, a polemicist and anti-racist writer. It's about the Reverend Wright "controversy" and why he thinks it's unfortunate bullshit. It violently claims that Rev. Wright was mostly correct in saying the things for which he was condemned. And he blames white people's addiction to lies and historical misinformation for their inability to see the truth in what Wright said. It's worth a read, though it is a little vitriolic for my tastes and at times too general. He also neglects an awful culprit in the mess, the media. But this bit is worth pointing to:

So what can we say about a nation that values lies more than it loves truth? A place where adherence to sincerely believed and internalized fictions allows one to rise to the highest offices in the land and to earn the respect of millions, while a willingness to challenge those fictions and offer a more accurate counter-narrative earns one nothing but contempt, derision, indeed outright hatred? What we can say is that such a place is signing its own death warrant. What we can say is that such a place is missing the only and last opportunity it may ever have to make things right, to live up to its professed ideals. What we can say is that such a place can never move forward, because we have yet to fully address and come to terms with that which lay behind.

Is it just me or does it feel like somethings gotta give sooner or later? The Rev. Wright hullabaloo is certainly far from receding (even today he gave a speech wherein he said that his comments were taken out of context in a damaging way. That speech, incidentally, was taken out of context on every news program I watched and in almost every article I read). And Bill Clinton can't seem to stop whatever it is he thinks he's doing. These are just a couple of instances that make me think this election campaign is going to be more arduous on the American people at large than we think it will be. At least more so than it has been so far. And probably more so than we are ready for.

mark.