Americans Can No Longer Split The Baby As They Did With President Obama

The election of President Obama allowed americans to split the baby. They thought this made everything in America okay when they elected a Black president. Instead it exposed the cancore sore of racism that was America’s sin for all the world to see. It may be time for the sore to heal.

Everyone has heard of the way King Solomon resolved the fight between two women who claimed the same baby. He decided to split the baby. The real mother who loved the child would rather lose the child than allow it to be split. The election of Barack Obama created a Solomon dilemna in America. We remember Obama’s speech on race and his call to the better half of America. We had always reverted to the dark side in the past. He urged us to have hope. We are no longer the dark past but the bright future. Whites who had never voted registered. Blacks who had never voted got hope for change. I recall a fight between a Black and white in the voting line. The Black was voting for Obama because he was Black. The whites were voting for him because he was half white. One white said: Obama is not black, he is half white. I am claiming my half. The Black said: Obama is black. One teaspoon of black blood makes you black. I am claiming my half. They both voted for President Obama for separate reasons. He allowed them to split the baby. Then Obama got elected twice. We began to see the anger in whites who felt a Black should never have been elected president and the anger in Blacks who thought his election meant this country had truly changed and would now live up to its promise. Both were angry and disappointed for different reasons. Neither realized that when you cover up a boil, it festers. It does not heal. Racism is the boil festering in America. It needs to be exposed and opened up so that it can heal. People are angry at Kaep because he said something about the festering boil when he saw the senseless killing of blacks in public and sometimes in the streets in America. The devaluing of black life was not going to be tolerated anymore. Black Life Matters was formed. The Klu Klux Klan removed their robes and stepped out in public. Neo-Nazi groups sprang up and stepped out in public.

I felt it when I tried to practice law in a small town and they began to violate my rights by coming into my home without a warrant. I was violated over and over again. I was wrongly convicted and incarcerated. I was an attorney. I decided to try the legal remedies. The courts including the United States Supreme Court reminded me that I was a Black female in America and the constitution and the laws were not going to apply to me. I had no rights and no one was going to protect them. Did I not know that I was Black? Even my social work profession let me down. We normally stand for the little man and try to protect his rights. They told me: you are black and we are not going to protect your rights here either. We are now and have always been a part of the silent majority. Haven’t you learned anything?  America has not changed. They elected a man who said we are too politically correct. Let us return to the old way. We had separatist groups that included blacks who are proposing to return to the old ways when women were kept in their place and did not earn much or have much power.  We could kill blacks and gays without any consequence. We could be as intolerant as we wanted to be. We do not have to be fair and follow the law. We had a white supremacist as a national security advisor. A man who was denied a judgeship because he was too racist was appointed Attorney General. America was now revolting against change. They wanted to return to the old ways of Jim Crow.

Then Kaep took a knee and told why he was taking a knee. The anger spilled out.  The festering boil in America–racism was exposed for all the world to see. It took the life of one white female in Charlotteville to make us see where we were going in America was wrong. She paid a high price. We cannot allow her to die in vain. America is better than Charlotteville. We can fix racism if we want to do so. Just as we learn to hate irrationally, we can learn to love one another. We are all brothers no matter what we think. When I am cut, my blood is red. When a white man is cut, his blood is also red. We are all the same under the skin. Moreover, we are all Americans. We are in a time of crisis. When we are in crisis, we unite.  I never lose sight of Jesus on the cross as my focus. He made the ultimate sacrifice for us. I can almost hear him saying: Love one another as I have loved you. We are in the same dilemma as they were in that day: do we pick goodness, love and justice or do we go down the other side? We are americans and we can make good choices. Even if we cannot make good choices, we know that a return to the old America with its splits, unfairness and injustice is not the way. We are better than this.

I wrote a blog sometime back when I praised Zuckerberg for standing up for his friend publicly. In my blog, I reminded America that all too often we think in terms of Black and white, pluses and minuses. We do not really think. We do not try to analyze why we think a certain way. How did we get those beliefs? Do we still need to hold them? Are our opinions still valid? Are we so intolerant of differences that we do not hear each other and are therefore incapable of change? Have we lost all hope? For me, the answer is “no”.  As long as we are breathing there is hope for change. We cannot give up. This is why I am fighting for change in the judicial system. I was shocked when I learned that we are intentionally executing innocent men and were violating the rights of others in the judicial system. We are no better than the Nazi. We must change. Americans are better than this. We stand for Democracy. We will not continue to be defined by our past.

The election of President Obama allowed us to think that we could split the baby and solve the problem. Charlotteville taught us that we must now fix the baby. The boil that has been festering in America called raciam is now exposed and we must cut it open and let the poison out so that it can heal. This can be and must be fixed if we are to continue. The lesson of Lincoln must be learned: A divided America cannot survive! We must unite and move forward in unity and love!