Unfortunately, over the last 20 or so years I have lived in areas aith large numbers of people who if you had a million years to deprogram would still find nothin' wrong with this t-whirt as they find nothing wrong with the word "nigger" when referring to black people...

I believe it was correct in 1997 for Bill Clinton to suggest that we, as a nation, need to have a discussion on race... I belivee that some 10 years later it was correct for Barak Obama to make that very same discussion...

With that said, it is no wonder that these discussions are occuring here in cyber-world and this is perhaps the best place to have such a discussion...

A good place to start is with "Uncle Tom" because "Uncle Tom" symbolizes treasonous behavior because he used his status to perpetuate the abuses of slavery... But "Uncle Tom's" behavior can be unwrapped and understood... I mean, given the choices of working in the fields where the work was very hard and grueling or working in the "house" many white people would have made the same choices had it been white people who were the slaves...

The hard part about having a discussion about race is that there is no way to avoid having a discussion about slavery and Jim Crow and the effects of both on our society... And a secondary question is what a "just" society founded on "equality" is held to do to "repair" itself... Yes, "itself"... That what scares alot of white people... Alot of white people just don't wnat to go there because alot of white people aren't doing very well either and for these people and those who are doing well use scarely rhetoric about things such as Affirmative Action as a wedge to keep doing well... I understand this...

But understanding the ramifications is no reason to not have these discussions and whether ot not Obama become president or not there is no denying that his rise has brought about these discussions... And as we see it isn't a discussion soley between white and blacks but whites and whites and blacks and blacks... Jeremiah Wright pointed that out quite forcefully...

Well, folks, I have rambled enough for now...

B~