A Message to Teabaggers

This message is in response to this comment on Huffingtonpost about the supposed Post-racial world after the Obama election:

OK Mr. Teabagger....where was your rage at out of control government when our out of control government - run by Republicans - invaded Iraq? Where was your anger at being fooled into supporting an effort that had NOTHING to do with "defending our freedoms", which we heard time after time from the Bush administration? Where was your rage a year ago this month - BEFORE Obama was elected - when the Bush administration cooked up the entire financial bailout deal that got us into this mess?

Now go look at the pictures of the rally this last weekend in DC - what color are all the people there? Is is possible, despite your black friends, that something may have slipped your notice about who you hang out with? Maybe it's true you're not racist, but what about all your cohorts?

Now, for the record, my skin color is probably closer to yours than to Obama's. My ancestors came to this continent about 400 years ago, but not as slaves. I, too have many black friends. Hell, I play jazz and R&B for a living. (that's "black" music) With black folk. But the color of my skin doesn't prevent me from seeing what is patently obvious. When your fellow teabaggers start bragging about their 2nd amendment rights while carrying guns to town hall meetings, and showing up at events where our president is speaking, only a fool could mistake the non-subliminal message these people wish to convey. When the President is receiving death threats at a rate 400 TIMES as many as previous presidents, no person with lineage back to Africa is either surprised or confused about the reasons why.

You call yourself a conservative. What exactly do you want to conserve? What is it you don't want to change? The insanity of the Bush years? The wanton spending propagated by other "conservatives"? The unbroken history of control of the White House by white males - until now? Do you really think that this country has broken with its tragic racist past?

If you have black friends, ask them what THEY think of all this. Go ahead. Then have the courage to write back with the results.

We Americans must have the courage to do much to deal with this issue. First of all, we must have the moral fortitude to look at things as they are in matters of race. It is we, who call ourselves "white" (I'm still looking for that actually white skin on my beige skinned body) who imagined that this group of people WE stole from their homeland are "black" (even very few of them have skin color that is really black, and not brown). We imagined that they were another "race" aside from the human one. We enslaved them, not the other way around.

Secondly, there are still consequences for our actions when we hang out with people who are still racist. The spike in the sale of guns after the 2008 election is not accidental, particularly when the people buying the guns proclaim, point blank, that they're buying guns because there's a negro in the White House. If you have black friends, where in the world is your rage at THAT injustice? Do you have the courage to speak out FOR your black friends?