This is what post racial America looks like

My last post, celebrating the historic health care reform legislation and our amazing President, referred to his quote, after the bill was passed, "This is what change looks like."

Sadly -- no make that horrifyingly -- this is what post racial America looks like. We have all read about the disgusting behavior of tea baggers and other right wing republican conservatives, but this opinion piece, by Bob Herbert, in the March 22 issue of New York Times, captures the broader view as well as any commentary I've seen. Be sure to read the entire piece, but here are a couple of highlights:

"...In Washington on Saturday, opponents of the health care legislation spit on a black congressman and shouted racial slurs at two others, including John Lewis, one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was taunted because he is gay.

At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich...

...This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry...

...A party that promotes ignorance (“Just say no to global warming”) and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country. Back in the 1960s, John Lewis risked his life and endured savage beatings to secure fundamental rights for black Americans while right-wing Republicans like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were lining up with segregationist Democrats to oppose landmark civil rights legislation.

Since then, the right-wingers have taken over the G.O.P. and Mr. Lewis, now a congressman, must still endure the garbage they have wrought.

Update from post racial America, October edition

This in the news this week (in case you though you were in a time warp, this is indeed October 2009):

Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License By Louisiana Justice of the Peace

A couple of "lowlights" from the article:

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Hmm, last I checked, anti-miscegenation laws were banned in 1967 by Loving v Virginia.

Seriously?!

Related post: A "Loving" kind of day, or is it?

Related photo -- heh!:

>Hmmm. Last I checked, all miscegenation laws banned by Loving v Virginia in 1967. 42 years ago.

Related post: A "Loving" kind of day, or is it?

Related photo:

Post Racial America: Black kids booted from swimming pool

Today cries of pure rage could be heard across the Blogosphere and Twitterville when folks began to post and share this dispatch from "Post-Racial America"

Pool Boots Kids Who Might "Change the Complexion"

More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.

The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately..."

"They just kicked us out. And we were about to go. Had our swim things and everything," said camper Simer Burwell.

The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

So angry you could scream? Me, too. But what fuels a deeper rage is the harsh reality that if you are a black child in America, this is your story, too, and some version of it has happened or will happen to you. The election of Barack Obama does not and will not protect you. The illusion of a post-racial reality is dangerous to your well-being.

Here's what my friend Quiana said about that truth: "A black president is not the same as the end of racism...We have to worry about the kids, white, black and those who live somewhere in the middle... messages about body, skin and self are painfully branded in moments like this. No matter what the club does, I hope all these kids have a caring adult who can support them to learn and heal instead of hurt and grow hard."

I remember with clear precision the first time my daughter was on receiving end of an overtly racist remark/action from an adult -- she was three. A mother on our block told her she couldn't come in their house because she was black and left her screaming in the front yard two doors down from me as the other children went inside. One of the children she let in was a very light biracial girl who must have "passed" to this woman. I ran and grabbed my child, not knowing why she was screaming. As soon as I knew (she told me), I raced and got that other girl's mom who snatched her child right up out of the that house. Our daughters had played like neighbor kids do on the sidewalks with the two little white girls from that home without prior incident. Who knew?

My son was five, in kindergarten, the first time he experienced the sting of a racist taunt from a classmate (I don't think I need to explain that one further). I will say it was a very racially mixed school that praised itself for its diversity and welcoming environment.

As a young, naive white parent I was shocked at each of those experiences. My Black friends just shook their heads and said to me, "So what did you expect?" They understood what I still needed to learn -- that it was just the beginning.

That was the 80s. Now here we are, a generation later, and even after we elect a Black man President of the United States, for some kids in a pool in Philadelphia, it's the same old same old same old.

Related posts

Womanist Musings: Black Kids Change the Complexion of a Pool

Harriet's Daughter: The Longer I live in post-racial America

Pam's House Blend: Black kids booted from Philly club's 'whites only' pool

Jack and Jill Politics: 60 Black Kids Booted from Philly Pool for Being Black