Racism

Not generally being the recipient of racism, I rarely think about it and the impact.  I am a white, suburban, stay at home mom, generally, I am treated the way you would expect.  I like to shock them with the fact that I am... wait for it... smart. 

So the fact that it is a big deal that the President is African American always catches me off guard.  I think it is great that he was elected, but I tend to forget that he is black.  He is a smart guy, seems to be doing a good job, and the majority of people in this country voted for him.  I seem to think that it was a fairly resounding victory.

Recently, I was shown a blog entry by Thomas Bowen, I don't know who he is, but the person that shared the commentary, is a pretty smart guy, so I read it.  (You can too at Blogging to the Choir, it is the open letter to the President.)  Generally, speaking, it is about the comment that Jimmy Carter made regarding Joe Wilson's comments.

I think it is interesting that the White House is distancing themselves from any sort of "race card" claims.  I wonder if their objective is to have people, do as I have, forget that the President happens to be a black man.  I wonder if it is because they are tired of having the conversation, and want to get down to the business of getting things done.  So that we can judge President Obama on the content of his character and the results of his office and NOT his color.

The whole situation around race is not something I understand or am even qualified to comment on.  I really thought what Mr. Bowen had to say was interesting.  It was well written and made me think about it, which I suppose was the goal.

Before I had kids, and I worked in retail, I believed it was ok to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  Now that I have Jewish kids, I realize that it is not such a cool thing to do.  As such,  I do not believe I can understand what it is like to be a minority in this country.  I just wish we could all get along.  I wish that we could stop worrying about what a person looks like, and worry about what they do and how they do it.  I wish that we could focus on the issues surrounding health care and not the color of the person delivering the message.  I suppose until those of us who have forgotten what color Mr. Obama is start standing up and saying hey, the rest of you need to stop this insanity and look at what the man has done, it won't end.

Finally, please remember that this is my house, and I can say what ever I want here.  I realize that this is a touchy subject, these are my thoughts.  I am always open to a dialogue about the subject, but I am not interested in flaming comments.

I will leave you with this final though on the subject, because I used the word Obama in my blog, will I get blog hits from the government?  Probably.