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african americans have suffered at the hand of racism and bigotry, and are in turn, bigots?

By American Girl in Italy on November 6, 2008 at 3:05 PM in African Americans, Barack Obama, Current Affairs, GLBT, Gender Bias, Pandering, Racism

“Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency of the United States is something local African Americans who lived through segregation and the civil rights movement never imagined would happen in their lifetime. Madison remembers the time when she wasn’t allowed to eat lunch with white shoppers at the ….lunch counter. She remembers the days when she had to sit in the back of the bus.

“It is the hurt feeling that I couldn’t do what the other kids could do,” Saunders said.

But now, Obama’s election ushers in a sense of hope, not for their generation but for the generation to come. “President-elect Obama means that my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, it means they have a better future.” Madison said.

“If a Black man can become president in the same country that wouldn’t even allow him to drink from a “white’s only” water fountain 50 yrs ago, then who am I to tell a little child that something can’t happen?”

I find it utterly ironic that the millions of people who voted for Obama are simultaneously congratulating themselves on their ability to transcend race and bigotry.

They are being quoted everywhere you turn about the how they have suffered, have been denied equal rights, have felt as second class citizens, were discriminated against, for how they were born.

And yet, “California’s black and Latino voters, who turned out in droves for Barack Obama, provided key support for a state ban on same-sex marriage. Proposition 8 overturns a May California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay nuptials and rewrites the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Exit poll data showed seven in 10 black voters and more than half of Latino voters backed the ballot initiative, while whites and Asians were split.”

“Denise Fernandez, a 57-year-old African-American from Sacramento, said she voted for Obama but felt especially compelled to cast a ballot this year to support Proposition 8. “I came out because of my religious beliefs. I believe a Christian is held accountable, and we have to make a difference,” Fernandez said.”

So, the message is, *Don’t judge me for who I am, or how I was born, but I am free to judge you for who you are, and how you were born. Don’t judge me for the color of my skin, but I am free to judge you for who you love. Don’t deny me the right to do what others can do, but I am free to deny you those rights that I am allowed.*

Barack Obama campaigned as a candidate opposed to gay marriage. I don’t doubt that Obama’s position on gay marriage influenced a large majority of his supporters. I saw Obama, once, speak out against Prop 8, as almost an afterthought to his comment that he opposed gay marriage. Obama pandered to Christian Conservatives to get elected. He refused to march in gay pride parades, he refused to be photographed with prominent Gay leaders in San Francisco.

And now, the voters, his supporters, in California have passed Prop 8, banning gay marriage. It even goes so far as to change the State Constitution to claim marriage between a man and woman.

Have African Americans forgotten the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution? Those are the types of Amendments that the constitution needs, ones that grant more freedoms and equalities.

The opening of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, states as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The phrase was also quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous I Have a Dream speech, as the “creed” of the United States:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

What part of that do people not understand?

As a woman, I understand that it applies to ALL people. Black, White, Brown, Male, Female, Gay or Straight.

You either hold these truths as self evident, or you don’t.

I think we all saw the inequality regarding the sexes this election cycle. And we see the bigotry. We may have *overcome* racism by electing Barack Obama.

But, before his supporters spend any more time patting themselves on the back, I think they need to take a good hard look in the mirror, and ask the question, *do I believe these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.*

We can’t claim entitlement to equality if we crush the right to equality of others.