Color Scheme

I suppose it was horribly naive of me to believe that somehow, in 2008, when the United States elected its first African-American President, our country could begin to put away all the hate and fear. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that we would all be judged by the content of our character is still a dream deferred. I remember the moment during that campaign John McCain finally had to stop his own supporters and remind them that he was running against a good man with whom he had a fundamental disagreement with on the way we were going to run the government. All of a sudden, voices that we hadn't heard for decades were on the news every night. And then Barack Obama won the election. Problem solved.
Except those voices didn't go away. They found keyboards and web sites and blogs. They learned to equate race with religion and stir them in a pot as the situation fit to stoke the fire of fear. Irrational fear that responds best to irrational claims. It is simple enough to put your confused notions of reality up on Al Gore's Internet. It doesn't even have to be spell-checked. Access is granted to anyone who can press the Enter key. You don't have to use your real name, or your picture. Spew your hate and post.
To be completely fair, I spent a good portion of George W. Bush's tenure in office referring to him as a "Pinhead." In hindsight, I suppose I should apologize for anyone identifying themselves with that group for defaming or degrading their culture or traditions. Mostly I was interested in drawing a line between the way I wish things were and the way they had become. I was fearful, but not because of someone's race. I was scared of the policies and direction that our country was headed. Poor decisions are made by human beings, regardless of the color of their skin or the god they choose to worship.
As the presidential election season continues to heat up, so does the rhetoric. Maybe they should take heed the words of the painfully white Denis Leary: "Why hate someone for the color of their skin when there are much better reasons to hate them." Of course, I don't know if I can personally vouch for Mister Leary's character, but he also said this: “Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list.” Now it's time for everybody to take a nap.