[DaBishop]

Welcome back Brother.

The world is keenly watching Mr. Obama with boundless optimism as he has motivated and inspired America and the entire world. He has demonstrated beyond words that he qualified, competent, disciplined and focused. He is clearly good for America and the world. There are of course extraordinary challenges ahead for his presidency.

Very true.

My thoughts on Race...

A President Obama and the Race Question

One will be playing the ostrich if one shrugs as ordinary the election of the first African American President. Some seek to minimize the achievement by solace in the fact that the President-elect is really bi-racial. They forget completely that in time past, one drop of colored blood was considered colored. To many citizens of the US and the world, Barack H. Obama is just another intelligent patriotic American whose political time has come. To many, he is representative of the generation who gets up, pick themselves up, organize and have things done, working side by side with all manner and shades of persons.

There are a few around the world who have not yet recovered, and are not likely to recover from the shock of an Obama Presidency in the USA. Race relations are supposed to have imperiled the well being of the campaigns in the first place. Complaints of wrong-doing or racial maltreatment by his pastor was supposed to shipwreck the course of the campaign. The elephant in the room was to be race; we were not supposed to express those concerns since they were divisive, why just flap them under the rug. Yet the opponent ran a campaign full of innuendo regarding ‘that one’.

On September 10, 2001, the government of George H. Bush of the USA withdrew Condeleeza Rice and Collin Powell from the Race Conference effectively dodging the issues raised at the conference as reported by New York Times:
Human rights activists say that if governments follow through on even some of the suggestions, such as embarking on publicity campaigns to promote racial tolerance or teaching children about Africa's contributions to world history, it will help improve understanding across racial and ethnic lines.
''If governments would really put in place what they agreed to here, the world would be a much better place,'' said Reed Brody, the director of advocacy for Human Rights Watch.
Whether governments will actually make good on these commitments is far from certain. During the conference, many countries used their political muscle to ensure that they would not have to deal with prickly issues of race or discrimination.
The elections and their results are an indication of the forward thinking of majority of politically active persons who knew too that it was also a referendum on race-relations world-wide.

In code speak, Obama suffered the indignity of his ‘patriotism’ being questioned, or his ‘trustworthiness’ being called into question during the electoral process being referred to as ‘that one’. Predictably, some commentator goes on about black peoples’ ability or lack thereof of leadership skills. This is only making public what some who have really fully interacted among the races can tell. It is inconceivable in the eyes of the skewed that a black can be a lawyer, deeply insightful or be even organized enough to sweep aside the existing system. What one looks forward to is whether Obama will take remedial action to correct the institutional racism. One would like to know, how many of the EEOC cases are disposed of; How much of the color of law complaints are handled; how much dynamism is pushed in the way of the Civil Rights Department of the Justice Division.

The laws of the society had been skewed in such a way that the underdogs remain underdogs with no upward mobility. Most Communities are organized in such a manner that there is upward movement of the classes, you could with hard work, a plan and some education, dig your way out of poverty. Sociologists would doubt the applicability of that modem in the past eight years in the US. Would a President Obama look to see that the promise of America does not erode? Institutional Racism has existed in many areas of public service right in the open. There are certain counties where is common knowledge that black persons go only to attend jail. In the event of a complaint, there often is a cover-up with a splattering of token blacks to fill the gaps. But looking at the persons eye-to-eye one would see the insincerity just as we know phony integrating preachers.

President Obama himself would need to read to himself, again, his well-articulated thoughts in his own speech, Towards a More Perfect Union. That in my opinion would be a good place to start.