So my niece and a car full of teenagers went to a gas station in VA. My niece, who has a chocolate brown complexion, is a size zero, is very articulate and cute as a button, and most of the friends in the car, went inside the gas station. While being closely watched, they walked around and talked about their plans for the evening. My niece broke from the group and went and asked the male attendant if they had a bathroom. Without speaking he shook his head no. As my niece browsed around looking at potato chips and snacks, one of her friends that was in the car and also a part of their group (unbeknownst to the attendant), came inside. Her friend asked the same attendant the same question: do you have a bathroom? However, this time he immediately said yes and directed her to it! As you can probably guess by the title of this post, there was a difference.  My niece and the group she came in with were black and the friend that came in later was white! Proud as I can be of her, my niece immediately spoke up and said, hey, when I asked you, you told me that you didn’t have a bathroom! He ignored her but then stared at her when her white friend came out of the bathroom and began talking to her! OMIGOODNESS!  The bible talks about God winking at ignorance. My eye would be sore from winking repeatedly at that attendant!

Pinch me and wake me up! Aren’t we in the year 2009? Didn’t we just witness the most remarkable occasion, of the highest ranking official position in the United States of America, being voted on by we the people and consequently filled with an African American/black man? Are we still not at the place where little black boys and black girls are able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers? Haven’t we yet been able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood? Are we still not able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we are free this day? Aren’t we, all of God’s children – black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics –able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last”? I guess not…

Remember the outdoor game we played as children called “Mother May I”? You got to take some baby steps, normal steps and occasionally you got to take some giant steps! Do you remember? As long as we were taking steps, even if baby steps, we were still moving forward! But the sadness came when we had to take the backwards step and loose momentum on our opponent. We are losing momentum! As pretty as some things might look on the outside of this world, inside many homes and inside many hearts racial hatred is the drug of choice and is embedded deep down in the crevices and stuck to the walls of their being. Just like toxic waste is packed in our body and leaves us feeling tired, bloated and weighed down with pounds of waste and toxins and sitting there for years; the same is true with the deadly toxins associated with racial hatred. And as far as I can tell, the only antioxidants for racial hatred are acceptance and love! That is a whole other post…

Needless to say, the next time my niece goes into a gas station in Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Utah, California, Oklahoma or 123 Anywhere Blvd, in Everywhere, USA; I want her to be given the same privileges, respect, response, reverence, and kindness the cute little white girl in front of her, in back of her or beside her is given. This is just a travesty! As my brother would say, I’m through. Pray my strength in the Lord!

Holla back…

Whether one agrees with the man or not, and surely no one agrees with anyone about everything, Mr. Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States of America.  Indeed this is a milestone in the history of this great country.

Still, I am concerned with the paradigm and language of a country, that while progressive in many respects still embraces a centuries’ old non-progressive mindset about the very thing from which it celebrates its liberation.

President Obama is proudly called the first black or African-American president in United States history, and so he is.  Both the public and the media mention his white family, but never does anyone say that he is white—but he is.  Mr. Barack Obama is as much a white president as he is a black president. 

I hold that we have only almost made it to the mountaintop that Dr. King dreamed of.  No, we are not there yet.  Because as long as white America and black America hold to the 1800’s belief that one drop of black blood or one black parent makes a person black, our thinking is as archaic as our slave-owning or enslaved forefathers was.  Both blacks and whites are wrong for only celebrating or referring to half of Obama’s culture, thus perpetuating the divide that we proudly say has been bridged by the new president’s election and inauguration.

Let it rather be said that, we have a president—our president, a black man, a white man or a man of color, someone we can all identify with whether black, white, red or yellow.   How about calling him a man, a man who was made in the image of God, a man who desperately needs our prayers?