SURVIVING ANOTHER HUMILIATION

By Reverend Doctor Linda Logan
Hemet California


I am a 71-year-old African American woman living in Hemet, California. In all of these years I have lived through many ugly, racially-charged events in this country that I call Home.

I have survived the humiliations that have been heaped upon me, even in my home state of Minnesota. Racially provoked lynchings, assassinations, and marches in this country have all left me with emotional scars that I have attempted to heal by believing that surely, surely time would allow humanity to realize that we are here together and that working as one cohesive unit is the only means for our survival.

However, today my heart began to bleed again. Here in the year of 2009, my 10-year-old grandson arrived home from school with a permission slip to be signed by his parents as to whether he would be allowed to listen to the speech next Tuesday being given by the President of the United States, one Barack Hussein Obama.

After reading this, I was unable to speak, I felt as though I was being strangled by some unseen hand. The insult was so obvious and painful that I found it difficult to breathe. Nothing had changed. The fact that the Hemet Unified School District or any other would deliver such blatant disrespect of their president and then, by implication, channel it into their students who are 90% Hispanic and a10% blend of Caucasian and African American creates, in my opinion, a feeling in them of being questionable and inferior.

I have no recollection of students being given an option as to whether or not to listen to the first President Bush.

Maybe only a few want to play the ‘race card’ but it seems to be the only deck at this time. Let’s be honest and admit that this over-the-top desire to bring our first black president to defeat is racially charged.

I had prayed that my grandchildren would not have to wonder if their black skin was their greatest detriment. I see that I must keep up my personal work with them of being proud to be Black Americans.

Racism has pushed the rocks away like a huge sleeping serpent. It is alive and well and slinking through America. When will those who nurture cruel concepts that cripple the progress of this country realize that they are blind sheep being led by politicians who have no concern for their constituents other than to be re-elected, on a suicide march over a cliff?

I say WAKE UP before this vitriolic, hateful and self-defeating current is the end of what could be a great and noble society, a truly United country.