Hard to watch, harder to understand. . .

What follows in the video is hard to watch, even harder to comprehend or imagine. Here's the lead from the Atlanta Constitution's report:

SARASOTA COUNTY, Florida — A police officer was caught on video tossing peanuts into a homeless inmate’s mouth as he was being booked into the Sarasota County, Florida, jail, the Herald Tribune reports. Randy Miller, 44, can be seen trying to pick up the peanuts from the ground after he missed them with his mouth. Sarasota Police Officer Andrew Halpin then kicked some of the nuts toward the man with his boot. A source told the Herald-Tribune that Halpin also gave Miller “dog commands” and laughed at him.

Read more here.

Race in America

In view of the current "conversation" regarding race and racism in the United States, I found Melissa Harris-Lacewell's essay, Can We? A Brief History of American Racism, published on The Nation website (September 16, 2009) worth a read:

Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. These four acts of Congress were meant to protect the new nation from French immigrants. They reflected a broad paranoia that French newcomers would poison American minds and weaken the new American government.

By 1802 President Thomas Jefferson led the repeal of most of these acts because they overstepped federal authority and instituted unjust restrictions.

In 1845 the Know Nothing movement in the United States formed a national political party based in nativist sentiment. This "Native American Party" rested on populist fears of Irish immigration. The Irish, they argued, were streaming into the United States. The Know Nothings argued that these Irish were unwelcome labor competition, and that these new immigrants were bringing with them foreign values, specifically Catholicism, which were a threat to American values.

By 1860 this party was extinguished.

In 1882 President Arthur signed into federal law the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese immigrant labor was the infrastructure backbone of the 19th century California Gold Rush, but by the 1880s a significant economic downturn increased competition and turned up animosity. Fueled by scarcity-stoked fear, nativists pushed an anti-immigration agenda, culminating in the 1882 Act that excluded Chinese workers from entering the United States.

In 1943 this act was repealed.

In the 1880s Reconstruction ended in the U.S. South. States of the former Confederacy began to enact legislation that stripped black citizens of the right to vote, ejected black office holders from their posts, and forcibly segregated public accommodations and public transportation. Architects of these Jim Crow Laws justified the exclusion of black Americans from the public sphere as a protection of the values and culture of Southern life.

To read the entire, instructive post click here.

Racism very much alive and active. . .

Jesse Washington filed a sickening story ("Obama election spurs race crimes around the country") last Sunday, November 16, 2008 with the Associated Press.

So much for those who report that they are tired of "hearing about race" or that it's time for the nation "to move on beyond racial conversations and categories."

Wishful thinking, folks.

Consider, better, can you believe these tag lines?

Cross burnings.

Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama."

Black figures hung from nooses.



Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

And, that is just for starters. sort of tones down the optimism most of us have been feeling, wouldn't you say?

Across the United States from one corner to the other, authorities document a wide range of racially motivated crimes, threats and attacks. a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to insults and racial taunts, as well as at least one physical attack. Hundreds of incidents have been reported involving people of all ages, including, unbelievably, a group of second-graders.

On second thought, maybe not so unbelievable at all.

From Washington's report:

One [incident] was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.

"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."

I'd say Ms. Millner has it about right.

Other incidents (can you spell "u-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e"?, not so fast. . .) Washington includes in his report:

-Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

-At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

-Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

-Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

-University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur.

-Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose. [I must say, I need to hear more about this investigation at Baylor, how about you? LJ]

-Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

-A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

-In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."

Please take the time to read Washington's entire report here.

Minority reports, these acts of hateful stupidity? Let's hope so. Clearly, the work is far from over in this country. Those who want to rush us along without allowing us to invest in the necessary work of reforming and cleansing the nation's soul should be ignored and their commentaries discounted.

And, now that you mention it, a strong, continuing word from the white church in America would be useful. Are you hearing anything out there from that camp?

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Hate speech

Politics gets nasty.

When I was a graduate student at Tulane University, I remember reading newspapers dating from the 1830s. The political rhetoric that filled those publications during national elections was incredibly vitriolic and hateful. The political cartoons were sometimes even more scathing! The attacks often turned downright personal. The material rivaled any hotly contested race today.

Politics just gets that way.

But today, it seems to me that we're crossing sacred boundaries to our own peril. Some of what is being said in this campaign cuts into the health of the nation's soul.

Earlier this week, we heard reports of racial epitaphs being shouted from campaign audiences against Senator Barack Obama. The use of the senator's middle name in a blatantly discriminatory and fearful manner, the veiled language of racism that identifies Obama as "not like us," charges that he was a terrorist and even voices shouting for his death were heard in more than one campaign speech and from more than one rally crowd. This all reminds me of the rhetoric surrounding the 1960 presidential campaign and the hate-filled language directed toward President Kennedy leading up to his assassination here in Dallas. It is all despicable.

For the leaders of such audiences, and by that I mean those who are at the podium speaking and those who organize the events, to refuse to stop immediately and challenge or correct such behavior is a serious moral problem. Such tactics destroy community, foster hatred and diminish the quality of life for every American.

This is not a partisan issue. It is not a political issue. This is a spiritual concern that points up just how far off course we have gone.

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