By Martins Itua
It would appear that even though there have been a lot debate and controversy about racism following the brutal murder of George Floyd in the United States, we are still not ready to openly discuss and address racism.
Black Americans are quick to remind America about the constitutional right that guaranteed that all men are created equal. While this appears good on the face of it, the more pertinent issue is to ask whether the framers of the constitution thought about black people when they said all men are created equal. Did the white people really believe or think that blacks and whites were equal? As uncomfortable as this discussion may be, I think people should be honest enough to have it.
In all this, Trump has taken lots of bashing for being on the driver’s seat when all this has happened. But we must ask a more important question about the role Obama has played in all this. Obama was American President for 8 full years and he didn’t do anything about the deplorable situation of black people in the United States. Joe Biden was VP for 8 years and has been in politics for more than 40 years. What has he done about the condition of black people in the United States? Yes, it seems right for him to get in bed with black people but it is all for political opportunism and nothing more.
You may not like Trump because he hasn’t demonstrated any empathy and the very way he has handled the demonstrations arising from the murder and police brutality. Trump has his issues and the next election will be a referendum on his performance. But Trump isn’t the problem and even if he loses the next elections, the problems will simply not disappear. It will be the height of naivety if anyone really believes that Joe Biden as president will make the monumental institutional changes that are required.
The first place to begin is to start an open discussion about race and racism. We need to change our ideas of black and white. We must change the whole notion about white representing everything good and black representing everything black. God and angels are supposedly white while Satan and demons are black, or at least look like black.
The more pertinent question is whether we can ever truly remove or eradicate racism. I’m not sure that we can muster the energy and coursge to carry out the seismic institutional reforms needed to bring equality between all races. Maybe what we really need isn’t equality but equity and fairness.
Will be happy to hear your views. We don’t always have to agree.
Comments (1)
Hussain Abdulsalamsays:
December 17, 2022 at 7:55 amAs much as everyone detest racism, as an agnostic that I am, I KNOW that god never loved black people. Since time immemorial, black has always been a symbol of bastardization down to the part where many forms of terrorisms are always linked to we blacks and Muslims. Without colonization, it’s evident that we wouldn’t have done better, there are intelligent ones amongst us but all our interests stems from greed’s, in every organizations they will have to deal with our secret moves. But I am black, there is racism which is a detrimental phenomenon and then, there Is us, Blacks!