Racism Is Here to Stay and Is Never Going Any Where

A year ago I had another blog called "Are You There SoCo It's Me, Dan?" For me, the purpose of the blog was supposed to be about my shrine to Southern Comfort. Really, it was a trial period to see if I liked blogging. The results were that I liked blogging it's just every time I blogged I was drunk on SocoColas, so my liver didn't agree with me.

With this blog I wanted to find an audience and I needed advice on finding a common ground on what to write about. So I sought the advice of Dr.Michael Johanssan, a former professor at Ole Miss and author of one of my favorite blogs "Freshrant: Exquisitely Baked Satire." He said on my Facebook Wall:

"Your blog is funny, ironic (in a non-white way, of course) with your own trademark sarcasm, as I recall. So since you're a self-described oreo, is "How to talk to a black person" far behind? Or is that too white ironic for you? Keep writing as you have come up with some original thoughts that poke fun at how our "post-racial" society (which I strongly agree) is not post-racial at all, noting awkward interactions worthy of ridicule between the races. BTW: On another of your topics, you might enjoy a recent freshrant.com piece I wrote about last week's "The Response" titled, "Thousands Gather To Pray Away Rick Perry." Sadly, that didn't seem to work either."

I found this to be a pretty fair assessment. But I had one problem. What does the term "post-racial" mean? I have noticed that this term has been overly used since Barack Obama has been elected into office because he is the first African American president (it was actually annoying). Which is a good thing because we had made great progress in America when it comes to race. Think about it, fifty years ago it would have been unheard of for an African-American to run for president let alone be elected as president. But I don't think that having one African-American as president ends racism because it's here to stay. Here are a few examples.

1. The Great Recession
In some way the Great Recession has affected everyone from losing a job or a house to clipping coupons. But in minority communities the Great Recession has been affected the most, becoming the burden of the tough economy. Before the recession happened people of the African American and Hispanic communities actually had secured savings nets and investing in the housing market. However, during the Great Recession they fell victim to a few factors:

• High unemployment rates which was 16.2 percent for African-Americans and 11.6 percent for Hispanics.
• Research from the Pew Research Center found that the median gap for household wealth is at it's highest with statistics concluding that compared to the wealth of white households is 20 times that of blacks and 18 times for Latino households.
• Minority communities have been targeted and fell victim to predatory lending with the American dream of buying a home with loans of high interest rates compared to white families with the same qualifications which they had fixed rate, prime loans.
• Finally, minority communities have also fell victim to predatory businesses such as rent-to-own stores and services that receive cash now, pay later.

2. Education System and Criminal Justice System
I took Politics of Race and Ethnicity with Dr. Adam Lawrence and what I remember in the class was that there are more prisons going up than there are schools. For education and the criminal justice system has weighed down the minority communities. Males of the African-American and Latino community are more than 6.5 times and 2.5 times more incarcerated than their white counterparts, respectfully. Additionally, in the education system students in the African-American and Latino communities are twice as more likely to drop out more than their white counterparts.

3. Politics

In my last post I said that instead of watching television I dedicate 28 hours a week watching Internet. The bulk of my Internet watching is youtube videos on politics. I especially love anything on the Tea Party Movement, specifically their racist signs that they display during rallies. For example, "Obama Plan=White Slavery." Additionally, they have a problem the over spending and the debt ceiling, and what they don't realize is that the eight years of Bush was the cause over spending, not Obama. So my question for the Tea Party was where were you when G.W was spending the money on two wars? I personally think that because our president is black they are giving him a hard time.

I remember during the 2008 Presidential Election and Al Jazeera English had a video interviewing supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin in Ohio. A lot of the people being interviewed said that if Barack Obama won the election, the blacks would take over. Additionally, because he is half Kenyan they thought that the Muslims would take over too.

4. Prejudices, Stereotypes and Socialization

The joke that I always make about myself is that I'm racist against all humanity. And it's true and sometimes it scares me. The other day I made a joke about Jewish people. A friend asked me, "What makes a Jewish person." I responded "Well, if your mother is Jewish...." He interrupted "No, jokingly what characteristics make a Jew." I said very quickly, "Well, if they are cheap or taking something that isn't theirs." I've talked to my friends and a co-worker at work and they all said well that is the stereotype.

As an Oreo I get the common question a lot, especially recently working at the stadium for some reason: You went to a white school, didn't you? There isn't a problem with that because I have accepted it. I think that compared to the others that work at the stadium I act more "white." One lady who was taking a psychology class said that the four years going to Octorara socialized me into what I have become. She even gave herself as an example saying that as a white woman growing up in Newark, New Jersey she grew up around black people. Then when she moved to the white neighborhoods she had black friends because she felt comfortable and socialized herself with the African-American . I agreed with her because when I moved out of the rural area and back into the city, I felt more comfortable with white people. I remember being in AIM for Success at Millersville University a five week camp for...well I don't know what the purpose of me going there was (really). But there were a lot of students from Philadelphia and to make a long story short I was scared. And it was because I spent four years being surrounded by white people that I forgot how to communicate with my fellow brothahs and Sistahs.

I think that the term "post-racial" America is complete bull shit. We see it everyday, from picturing a person on welfare to not driving your car next to the side, in front of, or in the rear of an Asain man or woman (it really does scare me how I come up with this stuff). We have to recognize that there are stereotypes and prejudices in different cultures. So from this day foward I want to say: RACISM IS HERE TO STAY AND IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE.