At long last the Elections are over here in the U.S. of A. We're finally free to begin our next round of campaigning (the Palin crowd is already chanting 2012... 2012... 2012...) since campaigns here in the United States last approximately four years, sometimes more.
Barack Obama is the new President-elect of the U.S. This comes as no great surprise, honestly.
I've written elsewhere, over on Mice Pace, that I don't vote anymore because I no longer really believe in any candidates presented for the last 20 years. And, as I've stated, I care about my country (otherwise I would not have dedicated nearly 22 years to its defense) and follow the electoral process; if I felt strongly enough for any candidate or strongly enough against any candidate I would most certainly vote.
But not this time -- because no matter how I may feel about the man, Barack Obama was pretty much a shoe-in. I saw it a long time ago and I stopped worrying about the politics of the matter and began to wonder about the social repercussions of the matter. After all, in the end we all have to deal with whatever the hell our government sends rolling downhill, for better or for worse -- but what bears most strongly on our day-to-day lives is immediate social interaction and attitude.
And that's where I worried (not that worry changes a darned thing; still, I like to mentally prepare).
Through the course of my life one thing I've witnessed over and over, one thing which has been brought home to me repeatedly, is that people are pretty darned ignorant and incredibly short-sighted and short-memoried.
It makes for a pretty small world, don'tcha just know?
I recall once back in England when a woman who worked in our group of mostly men used to complain about everything that didn't suit her specifically. Her attitude was pretty much that the rest of us could go to Hell so long as she got what she wanted.
Because of some complications in the overall section there were some power-shifts, changes in the rank structure, and she came to be in charge of the section. Part of her speech to inform us who was now in charge consisted of the following statement:
"Now you guys are going to find out what it's like."
No specifics, but the intent was clear; we were now under her power and authority and would feel the sting of some fancified lash beneath which she had, for reasons inexplicable to all save her, formerly felt herself to labour. It made no sense to anyone but her; still, until some months later she was replaced, it made our collective lives a kind of Hell. She was essentially determined to pay us back for some ongoing slight which existed solely in her mind and perpetual victim-status.
I don't think soon-to-be President Obama has any such intentions; nor do I even remotely suspect he made any such suggestions or promises, allusions or insinuations. Nonetheless...
Today in the local supermarket an African-American woman in my age group was standing with her arms around an African-American man, laughing and crying at the same time, saying over and over "We did it, we did it... Change is gonna come our way."
I find myself uncertain of what specifically she believes will happen; still, that she believes it is of no small concern on a number of levels. Perhaps she merely was excited by the election of the first African-American President in U.S. history -- nor could I blame her. It's indicative of a different nation than existed a mere thirty years ago.
Perhaps she sees something which I do not, something a tad more insidious, as demonstrated by the things I'm about to relay.
My wife called as she left school to tell me about some of the things she heard today. According to her (and believe me, creativity is not part of her makeup when it comes to stuff like this) racial tensions were running high in the classrooms today with frequent epithets from the African-American students directed at white students, comments such as the following:
- "Now you gonna find out what it's like!"
- "We got one of our own; now YOU gonna feel the whip!"
And probably my very favorite of all, a boy who was dancing down the hallways shouting...
- "We got a black man in, Slavery is finally over!"
As I've implied, I don't think Mr. Obama's stance involves any such rhetoric as this; in point of fact I strongly suspect that he would be greatly upset to actually hear such things coming from the mouth of anyone, regardless of color.
No, the problem lies, as I said, with the fact that there exists a large number of people ignorant enough to feel this way and state so with no degree of trepidation, people who actually believe not that something has changed in America, but that this somehow reverses the overall fortunes of our nation.
This sort of ignorance is close to home for me.
Are these mere children expressing such sentiments? Absolutely.
Is it possible, however, that the things these kids are saying are reflective of the socio-political stance of their parents? Further, that it's reflective of the mindset of a generational sub-culture and its social underpinnings?
That's where my worry lies.
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Obama won't be able to accomplish what these people expect of him, even if he wanted to. Expectations are so high, even Jesus Christ would disappoint them.
Which isn't being impious. Jesus disappointed a lot of people when he was preaching because he wouldn't say what they wanted to hear.
It's disappointing, but I suppose I should have expected it after the last forty years of minorities having it pounded into them how nothing is their fault, that it's okay to hate because they have been hated and that if they fail, it's not due to any fault on their part, but to oppression.
The last forty years has seen worse oppression of minorities by liberals than was ever accomplished in the days of slavery.
They destroyed the nuclear family by welfare, they discouraged learning. They work at encouraging minorities to have abortions. They fed them a steady diet of hate and resentment. And they told them over and over that they were powerless and only the liberals could hand them the good things in life.
But to get back to Obama. I think he's for a socialist agenda more than he's specifically for minorities.
So we all better get busy building a wall, because what comes rolling down the hill from the government is going to increase and the chunks will get bigger and harder.
At least this answers a question I've been wondering about myself. I always figured I was prejudiced. Not that I hate any minority in particular (except hippies) or that I'm a Klan member.
But because there's a dark part inside us all that is suspicious of the different. Of the people who aren't like us, whether it's race, religion, or tribal membership. We tend to feel safer with our own kind, to trust our family over "some stranger."
Now I don't think I'm as prejudiced as I thought because I really didn't see this coming. I figured there were blacks and other minorities who belonged to extremist groups the way some whites belong to white supremacists. But I figured while most minority members would be happy seeing a minority elected, they wouldn't be so sure and so gleeful that now we were going to "get it."
Even if your wife's school had a few children of Black Panthers attending, they can't all be.
And I've heard a few similar things from a few other people, so it seems to be wide spread.
God help us all, minorities too. They're in for a disappointment.
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