Final part of thoughts about USAToday.com opinion piece - 2.21.2007.4

Continued from part 2...

Racism and injustice cannot be noticed if a light is not shed upon them. That is what Black History Month is for. With respect to Mr. Kluger’s point, it’s not the time to hype that finally African American coaches made it to the Super Bowl, but to notice that not one Black American has ever owned a football team. Matter of fact, to my knowledge, no African American has owned more than part (less than half) of ANY major professional sports team. It’s not time to notice that a African American is being talked about as a Presidential candidate, but what is being said about this candidate [see my post Senator Biden and Senator Obama - 2.1.2007.1].

This is what our children need to learn. To see the whole picture. To understand that inequality exists, and that some choose to overlook it or reword it. They need to look beyond the surface and understand what is really happening.

“What kind of responsibility do we parents have in educating our children about the sad legacy of racism that has run through our nation's life like a persistent electrical current? Do we bequeath that shame to our kids out of a sense of obligation, charging them with the task of carrying the long, hard fight of our troubled heritage into a new era? Or do we quietly give thanks for their blissful naiveté- their lucky late-century birth - and hope that the deeper sense of fairness that is already evident in their new generation may take root in America's future? Do we leave well enough alone?”

The responsibility of adults today is to educate the youth that the electric current is still on. The obligation is that we still have to have the hard fight in this new era, and that is a shame. There is no naiveté, unless we choose to look away and pretend it exists, and many have no choice but to see its reality. The hope of fairness, which exists in some aspects of the youth must be balanced with the reality that ‘ghetto’ parties at our colleges and institutions of higher learning are the new degradation du jour. That to leave well enough alone has been the systemic poison that we have followed for decades now, and it has led to regression more than improvement.

Black History Month is about action, in all forms. This is what needs to be passed on. I’m grateful that I will never have to be confronted with a situation that Mr. Kluger’s babysitter Elizabeth encountered. I am not confident that my nephew, or his children, will never have that same conviction. This month and all months are a time to ask why America has made reparations to Native American Indians and Japanese Americans, but not even an apology has been offered to Black Americans ever.

So again I say, I do agree in part with Mr. Kluger but I respectfully disagree as well. In almost 40 years, having lived in various parts of the nation and the world, I do not see the same improvements. I live through many troubles that have not changed. And I see the potential for regression.

This is what I think, what do you think?