Reply #29: You can't possibly be serious

[EffieBlack]

Michelle Obama and other blacks are supposed to be GRATEFUL that several hundred years after blacks were brought to these shores, enslaves, abused, degraded, forced to build the country but denied the fruits of their labor, 160 years after the Supreme Court ruled that blacks had no rights which whites were bound to respect, 150 years after the 15th Amendment, 120 years after the Supreme Court sanctioned state-imposed discrimination, 40 years after the Voting Rights Act a brilliant, accomplished black man is in a position that hundreds of white men of varying backgrounds (and sometimes no) talents, skills and experience have been in and taken for granted for hundreds of years - and is STILL not sure if "America is ready" for him?

Do you realize how offensive it is to be told that we should be PROUD of a country because it seems that there may be a possibility that it has finally gotten around to this point? Or that black folk should be GRATEFUL that we are doing better in America than we would be doing in another country? Would you ever even think of saying, "Can you imagine a George Bush or John Edwards in the Netherlands, Italy, or France?"

FYI, The Netherlands, Italy and France do not have the history of racial discrimination, oppression and violence that America has. None of those countries was built on the backs of forced African labor. None of those countries has anything close to the numbers of blacks that America has nor have blacks been as integral in the birth, formation and development of any of those countries. Your analogy is not only insulting, it's ridiculous.

And while you're extolling the virtues of the fact that Barack Obama is on the cusp of a Democratic presidential nomination, his emergence does not mean that all of America's racial and other societal ills have suddenly been cured. Obama, a member of the Dr. DuBois' "Talented Tenth" is a remarkable leader, an outstanding role model - but he is not representative of the condition of most black Americans. This country STILL has a problem with race and poverty and class that Barack Obama's success will not by itself eliminate. He would be the first person to tell you that.

So, please, spare me the lectures about how much better blacks in America are doing than blacks in some country in Europe. We're not in some country in Europe. We're in the United States. And trying to divert attention from the continuing glaring equality gaps that still plague this nation by saying, "Don't worry about catching up with white folks. Just be grateful that you're doing better than the black people in Amsterdam."

You know, I used to be amazed at people who would say that, "The poorest Negro kid in the South was better off than the kid in South Africa." So what! We are not in South Africa. We are here."
--Thurgood Marshall, November 18, 1978