The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla In The Room With The "R" On His Chest

Sometimes I have things within me that is so burdensome that I have to get it out.  It is never that I am afraid to say what I feel, it is just that, I guess, I am hoping someone else will see what I see and say it before I feel I must say it.  The seed for this e-mail was born out of a conversation that I had with two members of Marion County Democratic Party at our monthly meeting and came to maturity after reading Mr Painters recent e-mail expressing his disappointment of the President and the Democratic Congress.  I have a problem when my colleagues and the media are appearing to be on the same page in their analysis of what is happening in politics and the community.  It is no secret that the media makes its living off sensationalism and half truths based on the direction that their owners and/or managing editors dictate.  But back to the purpose of this e-mail.

 On Monday I was telling two Party members about a conversation that I had with a friend of mine who use to live in England and still has strong ties in the European Community.  I told them that my friend stated that almost every country except America believes that President Obama is one of the most, if not the most respected and effective leaders in the world and that the foreign community does not blame him for what is happening in the American Legislature but they are blaming our Congressional leaders for his ineffectiveness.  This brought on a spirited conversation between myself and both the African-American and European-American gentlemen.  They both believed that President Obama should be more forceful and spirited in taking on the Republicans and should use the bully pit to force his issues through.  I of course disagreed with them.  I told them that I felt that he was doing exactly what he should be doing under the circumstances.  The fact that he is the first African-American President dictates that he cannot over play his hand, because this is what his adversaries are waiting for.  I also reminded them that I am a Hilary Clinton Democrat and that as a rule I don't use the race card, but in this particular instance we have to face the facts that it is Racism that keeps him from being effective.  Of course they both disagreed with that.  Now these are supposedly two staunch Obama followers and has always been Obama followers.  The European American stated that when Mr Obama ran the first time he housed some of his volunteers, worked as a volunteer and gave money, but this time he don't think he will do any of this.  So I said if you are not going to support him, then who are you going to support.  I stated that it is my belief that the Democratic Party is constantly shooting themselves in the foot by making rash and selfish decisions without associating the consequences with their actions and I re-emphasized the efforts that the Gay Rights wing of the Party made during 2010 that offset the other efforts within the Party which I believe caused a dismal showing at the ballot box by the entire grassroots community.  The African-American then began citing instances where other Presidents rose to the occasion under similar  circumstances.  I then told him that he was making my case for me and proceeded to ask him what color were they.  To which he made no statement.  I told them that Racism is not just a Republican and a Tea Party thing it is also a Democratic Party thing, because if you will remember that it was not the Republicans that held up and stripped the Health Care Legislation it was our own Democratic Congress Leaders that did this.  After this the European-American said I see what you are saying, but why is it that no one else is saying anything about it.  I said because if you say something about it you give it a name, then it is defined and finally it has a platform.  By not saying anything its power over the decision making process continues to grow and prevents us from doing what is naturally right.

Racism is an excessive and irrational belief in or advocacy of the superiority of a given group, people, or nation, on racial grounds alone; race hatred.  If you would examine the actions of our Political Leaders in all our Parties since President Obama has been elected, what you will see is a consistent record of excessive and irrational behavior aimed at discrediting, disrespecting, embarrassing and causing him to fail at the expense of the success of our country and the care of our citizens.  When Health Care is the number one drain on our economy and the people who need medical treatment, it is irrational to not want to pass a proper Health Care bill.  When you have proven over and over again that President Obama is a citizen of the USA and there is still solid resistance by a group of people, some of them Congressional Leaders, then this is both excessive and irrational.  When the Tea Party runs on a campaign of "Taking back our Country", this is advocating the superiority of a given group.  When most of your citizens are suffering financially and you would rather take more money and resources from those who do not have it to give, rather than take from those who have a surplus to give and then you call it balancing the budget, this is excessive, irrational and advocating for the superiority of a given group.  When you are constantly complaining about people on welfare or unemployed being a burden and drain to the tax payers in our country and you religiously give billions of dollars to Big Oil and other welfare recipient Big Businesses without a mention let alone a complaint, that appears to be irrational, excessive and the advocacy for superiority of a given group.  When the advocates for the Republican and Tea Party beliefs and their Candidates can get on television and radio and lie about our President and they or proven to be lying and people still find what they are saying to be creditable, this is an excessive and irrational belief in or advocacy of the superiority of a given group on racial grounds alone.  The problem with Racism in America is that everyone knows it is here, but no one wants to talk about it.  And it is because we do not talk about it, which allows it to continue to determine the decisions that we make and/or are made for us.  Racism has always lurked in the backrooms, alley ways and ivory towers of our society, because it has always been used to keep people of different races apart so that they can not recognize how much they have in common.  Our country is being destroyed by racist factions in our political leadership, financial leadership and our communities and they are using fear and distrust to make this happen.  All of us commit racist acts every day, but that does not make us proponents of racism and we are not.  Our acts are done out of ignorance of what constitute racism and because we lack intent of our actions we are not racist by its purist sense.  We must understand this because if we do not then we will allow others to characterize us and we may characterize ourselves as something that we are not.

When President Obama was elected, he stated that together we can bring change to America and that he could not do it alone.  He needed each and everyone of us to get involved and together we can make it happen.  The time is now!  Well this is that time when each one of us need to stand up and say to those that are using racist tactics that we know what you are doing and we will not continue to allow you to destroy our country for your racist agenda.  Call them what they are and demand that they put our country and citizens ahead of partisanship and racist ideology.

Oh by the way, the letter "R" on the Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla's chest stands for "Racism".  

As always this is just my opinion and that does not make it right.

Lee Walter Jenkins