SecretMethod70

If I may make what I think is a very interesting observation...

I've struggled with how to point this out for quite awhile, and I have yet to come up with a way to do it that won't get some people upset. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the point isn't completely missed by the people who would actually benefit from it. But I'd like to hope it's not, and I've decided that I should post this observation because I think it's an important one.

Some of the locations of TFP members who seem most outraged by Obama and Rev. Wright, and who like to express views like "We go forward by getting over it and moving on."....

Tennessee
Kentucky
Texas
Ohio
Detroit

Now, either these places have kicked so much royal ass in terms of race relations that they have not only overcome the cultural and structural problems that made most of them known for poor race relations in the first place, but have also managed to move beyond most of the rest of the country and world in race equality....or, more likely, this is telling in an entirely different way.

I can't claim to know exactly what this observation means, but I know it's important. Much like the Supreme Court knows obscene when they see it. To be lectured on how we need to "move on," and on how merely talking about racial inequality is racist, by inhabitants of areas known for poor race relations - both in the past, and today - is ironic, at best.

Now, I'm not trying to paint with broad strokes here. I know there are plently of good and bad people mixed in all around the country. But I also know that we are shaped by our surroundings, and I don't find it surprising at all that these areas might promote views expressing how we need to move on, or stop looking at race for anything, period. Sadly, it also shows that while they got the surface message of the civil right's movement - that race does not make anyone better or worse than another - they seem to have missed the deeper message, that we need to fight not only for racial equality now, but to undo the legacy of racial inequality from the past. What is fair is not always equal, and vice versa. Unfortunately, part of the reason it took and is still taking our country so long to reach actual equality is because we fail, collectively, to understand that point. Slavery was abolished, and black people were made free...with very little to show for it in terms of setting them on equal footing. The story continues in much the same manner all the way to the present.

There's a general rule of self-awareness that goes something like, if so many people keep on telling you you're X, but you think you're Y, you're probably wrong. Now, typically that applies to real life friends, and it's a matter of only having a few people say it. In this case though, without personal awareness, larger numbers are more important. Well, I can say with certainty that there are plenty of people, not just in the rest of the US, but all over the world in some cases, who recognize that the American south and bible belt are not the moral authorities on race relations, regardless of what progress has been made. I hate to say it, but I can't think of the last time someone was intentionally dragged to death by a truck in Illinois because of their race or sexual orientation. I can't say the same for some of the places I listed above (and considering typical attitudes in southern IL, I don't even consider IL to be a model state in that regard!).

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"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling