WASHINGTON: History points to work undone

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Black History Month 2009, with its official theme “The Quest for Black Citizenship in the Americas,” may be officially winding down, but the intractable racial discourse and disputes in this bifurcated nation struggling to be “a more perfect union” are never-ending.

How healthy is this heated debate? It´s healing only if it serves to move us forward to mutual respect and acceptance in our differences as well as our commonality. Otherwise, the crosstalk just exposes fear-driven hatemongering.

So, do we jump into the double-dutch match being played out among black educators and commentators passionately arguing for and against the very existence of a month set aside to commemorate the accomplishments and innovations of blacks who fostered the growth and development of America?

I think not. We cannot confuse the necessity to research and commemorate our past with the desire to celebrate our progress. Without knowing how difficult it was to win passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, for example, we cannot fully comprehend the awesome victory of a Barack Obama candidacy and election.

As always, enough symbolic examples of racial hatred and degradation abound to remind us of the work for tolerance and understanding left to be done.

Take, for example, the hurt and anger that sparked the protest over an offensive New York Post cartoon, for which the paper has since apologized. It depicts a chimpanzee shot by white policemen, who said, “They´ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” Some, like NAACP President Ben Jealous, have interpreted the depiction to be a racist, backhanded slap at President Obama.

Foul play, for sure. Yet, once the ire has been raised and the apology issued, we must remain mindful that there are bigger fish to fry. People of every hue are losing their livelihoods.

Still, the New York Post cartoon is an example of the value of diversity and history (or at the very least, institutional memory) that should come into play, particularly in the workplace, where imagery is currency. An editor or an aide with certain knowledge, experience and sensibility would have raised a red flag at the New York Post, or at the Justice Department and the Republican National Committee headquarters, too.

What about Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.´s statement that this is “a nation of cowards,” or RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele´s statement that the party needs a “hip-hop” makeover?

I can understand how whites could be offended by the singular phrase about Americans being afraid to engage in honest discussions about race in the U.S. Attorney General´s Black History Month speech at the Justice Department, especially if they did not read the entire four pages of the otherwise colorless text.

The major point that got lost in the sound bites, it seems, is that Mr. Holder took blacks as well as whites to task for self-segregating, and he challenged all to do better.

With his “hip-hop” appeal to garner young black voters, Mr. Steele apparently found himself an equal-opportunity offender, too.

Either way, the commonality for these American leaders rests not in their curious or poor choice of words, but in how quickly Mr. Holder and Mr. Steele can be misunderstood as black men by the majority when, as in Freedom´s Journal, we take to “pleading our own cause.”

Stereotypes are stubborn. Some diehard sectors of this nation will never welcome each other despite the wishful thinking that we are living in “post-racial” America with the crowning of a black man as president.

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