Brody's Scribbles...Racism & Bigotry in America Today, Do We Even Recognize The Racism That Exists?

Dan Kirk is a political activist from Sacramento California. He lives with his domestic partner, Robert. Together they are raising his niece and nephew – just another gay family in a world that is slowly coming to terms with things that are different.

Tea Party Protester In Washington DC
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By Dan Kirk (Sacramento, California) APR 28 | Yesterday's events in the political sphere have brought the issues of racism and bigotry in our country back into my thoughts. When President Obama acquiessed to the repeated demands that he 'show his papers', our country reverted to how it was over a hundred years ago and up to our more recent history of the twentieth century where anyone who wasn't white or christian would often find themselves second-class citizens, or even worse. Yet, people will act shocked to the core when confronted with their own racism and declare "I am not a racist!" or "That's not racism!". About fifteen years ago, I had a conversation with my own grandmother that was just like that.

"I'm not a racist." She told me when I confronted her about refusing to let my cousin and her newborn child into her home. "This is my home. I choose who I let in and who I don't, and I don't want any of them in my home. Let them go live where they want, work where they want. We can't stop them thanks to the courts, but that's their business. I still can refuse to let them in my home, and that girl got herself pregnant by a negro and I don't have to let her child in this house."

Yes, she was still upset about the Supreme Court overtuning the California Ballot Proposition that established the right of homeowners to refuse people of different color or religion from living in their neighborhoods. It wasn't just black people, either. She didn't want hispanics, asians, or non-christians around her either. We didn't talk for about three years after that discussion, largely because I was so angered by her racism and her refusal to even admit it was racism. To her, racists were those folks in white sheets that strung the negros up or drug them behind their trucks. Good, ordinary folk were the ones who didn't want negros going to the same schools or being able to buy homes in the same neighborhood as good white folk. There was no problem with stopping people in the neighborhood just because of their skin color, or their religion.

In the mid-nineties she had people move in next door who had really dark skin color, and all hell broke loose. Any time one of them even looked at her, she was on the phone calling the police. Her house was locked tight every night and she must have spent most of those early nights shivering in fear in her bed, unable to go to sleep. She ended up in the hospital after a few months of this, and was put on some anxiety medication until she was finally able to accept that she had people living next door that weren't white.

Then the muslims moved into that house down the street, and she was convinced that they were going to blow up the entire street. If you think that's bad, when the Mexicans moved in across from her, she became convinced they were going to kidnap her and sell her into white slavery.

Thankfully she died several years before Barack Obama ran for President, because I don't think I could have withstood her reactions to a black man running for President. I know she would have been convinced there was no legitimate way he could be President. Most likely she would never accept him as President and would grab onto any straw that would point to him being illegitimate.

Oh yes, she would definitely had been a Birther, demanding he show his papers, his long-form birth certificate. Never mind that the long-form birth certificate has NO LEGAL VALUE. In fact, unlike the short-form that Obama provided in 2008, the long form CANNOT be used as identfication or to prove citizenship. Hawaii certifies only the short-form certificate as LEGAL proof of brith, and he showed that in 2008. The form people have clamored for over the past three years is not the legal document. They've had the legal document, but they don't want to accept it, because accepting it is to accept the legitimacy of his Presidency.

As soon as President Obama provided this long-form document that has no legal merit, the 'controversy' was not ended. Instead of having their doubts answered, the doubts immediately shifted onto his college transcripts. The demand of "SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS!" continued, but now on a new topic that no white President would be forced to provide. Hell, I didn't like George W. Bush, and I don't think he was properly elected in 2000, but even I had to admit he was the legitimate President of the United States and his taking the office of President was legal. But to those who don't want to admit we have a black President, no document will ever suffice. If President Obama showed all of his transcripts today, it would be something else they would demand to prove he wasn't illegitimate. It's kind of like a black man walking down a public street in 1899 America.

It reminds me of a new arrival in my division back when I was in the Navy. This guy had no problem with a black member of our division, who was the same rank as him. He did have a problem with the black guy who was in charge of our division. One night, after quite a few drinks in a bar overseas, he finally admitted to me the core of his problem. "I ain't got a problem with them blacks working with us. I get it that's the way things are now, but none of them should be able to tell ME what to do." It isn't a stretch to imagine this guy is one of those currently demanding that President Obama show his papers.

Nor is it hard to imagine that MOST (not all) of the clamor is from people who have a discomfort with the idea of a non-white person being in charge of them and their country. They might feel it's fine for 'those people' to live here, work here, and even hold positions of authority. Yet, put one of 'those people' in charge, and there are problems. Most likely they will never admit the problem is the color of their skin, or their religion, so they will focus on ANYTHING that will deligitimize their status as a leader. When you take away that current focus, the focus will shift to something else, and so on and so forth.

That is how you can tell if racism or bigotry is behind something. Prove the fallacy of their argument, and it will shift to something else. That is because the bottom line is not that they don't think Barack Obama was really born in the U.S., it's because he's black and deep down, so deep they can rarely admit it to themselves, they can't believe a black man can be THEIR President. It's sad, but instead of getting rid of racism completely, I think we have merely shoved the racism down so deep that people won't even admit it in themselves. 

As a country we have come a long way in how we treat people who are different from us. Yet, as this birther controversy has shown, we have a great deal further to go before we are able to put the stamp of "deceased" over the demand to "Show me your papers!."

RELATED: The Huffington Post- April 27, 2011: A Day of National Shame