And so the anti-Obama nonsense begins...
Yesterday, I opened an e-mail from my aunt in Florida. Here's the text of what it said:
I got this from a friend of mine today. It's a little late since we've already got the @#$%^&* Nigger in office, but it's a very cute song done by Hank Jr. The pictures that go with it are great too.
I swear on a stack of Bibles I never thought I'd see the day we'd put that type of a person in the White House, I figured I would see a woman president and right now I'd take Hillary over what we've got.
Americans have become the most stupid people in the world, and they gave him a Democratic Congress too. Everyone yelped about Bush and a Republican Congress, well now they've got the same thing except the other party, lets see how much they yelp in a few months about that.
Oh well maybe we'll luck out and someone will take him out before he's got time to do too much damage, but then we/'ve got Biden taking over and I'm not sure about him either.
When I read this, I got extremely upset, and that's putting it politely. I felt sick and angry that this woman, my late father's sister, one whom I've respected and loved all my life, should spout such hateful rhetoric, using the N-word and wishing death upon the President Elect. Perhaps I was a little hasty in my reply, but I just could not let it stand:
Aunt ***, shame on you. It is the 21st century, we should all have realized by now how stupid and pointless racism is. Forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." People are people, the color of one's skin should not matter in the least.
I feel that President-Elect Obama has what it takes to turn this country around and set it back onto the correct path. I don't want to hear any more hateful rhetoric against him, and I certainly don't want to see the n-word in any more e-mails.
To say she was pissed is a massive understatement. She sent me back a long, angry reply about how horrible the Democrats are, how inexperienced Obama is, his Muslim background, how he's going to run the country into the ground, etc. Look, disagreeing with someone else's politics is one thing. Hating someone because of their skin color is quite another. That just proves that she Just Doesn't Get It. She didn't even acknowledge her own bigoted remarks!
I am aware that trying to talk sense to a bigot is like trying to smash down a concrete wall by slamming your head against it; it doesn't leave a mark and only gains you an excruciating headache. It's easy to decry bigotry from strangers, but when it comes from a close family member, it hurts. And it's worse when they refuse to even listen to you.
Yes, there is a generation gap: she's in her 70s, and I just turned 40. I remember reading books about MLK, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, etc., and being shocked and upset at how they were treated, simply because of their skin color. It still shocks and upsets me that such ugly, ignorant, evil attitudes still exist. I know that many people of her generation do not think that way, and thank God for that. Unfortunately, there are too many people who do feel that way, even from my own generation, and that unthinking hatred has poisoned our society.
Differences are a part of life. If you are willing to accept people as people, and accept differences, and learn to coexist, positive change will come. But if you don't, that ignorance will lead to fear, that fear will lead to hate, and that hate will lead to the stagnation and decay of all that we hold dear.
I got this from a friend of mine today. It's a little late since we've already got the @#$%^&* Nigger in office, but it's a very cute song done by Hank Jr. The pictures that go with it are great too.
I swear on a stack of Bibles I never thought I'd see the day we'd put that type of a person in the White House, I figured I would see a woman president and right now I'd take Hillary over what we've got.
Americans have become the most stupid people in the world, and they gave him a Democratic Congress too. Everyone yelped about Bush and a Republican Congress, well now they've got the same thing except the other party, lets see how much they yelp in a few months about that.
Oh well maybe we'll luck out and someone will take him out before he's got time to do too much damage, but then we/'ve got Biden taking over and I'm not sure about him either.
When I read this, I got extremely upset, and that's putting it politely. I felt sick and angry that this woman, my late father's sister, one whom I've respected and loved all my life, should spout such hateful rhetoric, using the N-word and wishing death upon the President Elect. Perhaps I was a little hasty in my reply, but I just could not let it stand:
Aunt ***, shame on you. It is the 21st century, we should all have realized by now how stupid and pointless racism is. Forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." People are people, the color of one's skin should not matter in the least.
I feel that President-Elect Obama has what it takes to turn this country around and set it back onto the correct path. I don't want to hear any more hateful rhetoric against him, and I certainly don't want to see the n-word in any more e-mails.
To say she was pissed is a massive understatement. She sent me back a long, angry reply about how horrible the Democrats are, how inexperienced Obama is, his Muslim background, how he's going to run the country into the ground, etc. Look, disagreeing with someone else's politics is one thing. Hating someone because of their skin color is quite another. That just proves that she Just Doesn't Get It. She didn't even acknowledge her own bigoted remarks!
I am aware that trying to talk sense to a bigot is like trying to smash down a concrete wall by slamming your head against it; it doesn't leave a mark and only gains you an excruciating headache. It's easy to decry bigotry from strangers, but when it comes from a close family member, it hurts. And it's worse when they refuse to even listen to you.
Yes, there is a generation gap: she's in her 70s, and I just turned 40. I remember reading books about MLK, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, etc., and being shocked and upset at how they were treated, simply because of their skin color. It still shocks and upsets me that such ugly, ignorant, evil attitudes still exist. I know that many people of her generation do not think that way, and thank God for that. Unfortunately, there are too many people who do feel that way, even from my own generation, and that unthinking hatred has poisoned our society.
Differences are a part of life. If you are willing to accept people as people, and accept differences, and learn to coexist, positive change will come. But if you don't, that ignorance will lead to fear, that fear will lead to hate, and that hate will lead to the stagnation and decay of all that we hold dear.