America: My Gift and My Curse, My Pride and Pain

I am a 29 year old professional young black man. I grew up in Wichita, Ks. and attended an all Black Catholic Elementary a middle school. Then I went on to an all white catholic high school. I experienced a glimpse of America as began to journey into it as a young black man. I like Michelle Obama is for the first time really proud to be an American a patriotic American. White America will ask why? Let me explain…

For the first time in a long time America is facing what it had been scared to do, which is truly voice our thoughts on America Racial Issues. Americans of all color are paying attention and facing America's darkest secret of race...and how far we have come and not come. I know black and whites alike that are uncertain if this country is truly ready for a Black Man as president. Black and whites alike fear for his life and the set backs if such an event as Hillary Clinton stated for not dropping out of the race of the Presidency.

My great-great grandmother 100 years old as of May 2008 use to share with me as a boy what American history book in my schools would not. She shared with me what American government would not. She shared with me what many White Americans of the 1930’s, the 1940’s, the 1950’s, and the 1960’s may have chose not share with some of there kids and grandchildren about how they may have treated blacks or how black were treated. She talked about working on a plantation as little girl post-slavery. The friends she lost, the stories her parents told her about life slavery. I learned of a history that has been brushed under a rug. I know of times purposely drown at the bottom of the sea, that today most Americans alike are blind to. She told me to find out about my history about my America.

People of Color have benefited from the Civil Rights era in general. One of the largest immigration came during that time. The larger percentage of America only knows the bleached, down played version of American history and racism. You know like I know why it was kept out of American Educational History books... Why are there no pre-elevation systems of African Americans not mentioned??? The Atlantic Slave Trade, Chattel Slavery, the battle over Emancipation Proclamation of Slaves, Brussels Conference Act of 1890, post-slavery plantations, 1900 to 1940’s Lynching’s, Whites Only/Coloreds only, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the foundation of the government’s Jim Crow Laws, Separate but Equal, Brown v. Board of Education, Dred Scott v. Sandford, the psychological systems of breaking blacks for the processing of slavery, the foundation of Wall Street America’s 1st Fortunate 500 Company (Slavery), the first largest import/export product was not TEA it was Africans/Human beings. The slap in the face of the most common human emotion, love, with the Anti-Miscegenation Amendment. This basically forbade interracial marriages nation-wide. Yet this portion of American history is referred to as simply a black-eye instead of a disease.

Some will say get over it. Some scream old news. They are acting like victims, can you just let it go? Some will say White America has helped endlessly to elevate Black Americans with endless scholarships, funding, and grants. Whites have helped and many Blacks have capitalized on it. The gift and curse about American Social Systems aiding African Americans only came about after the inhumane governmental systems of racism that were and are in place unfortunately. Justifiably so, I agree that strides have been made. Let us not forget or be blind to the government systems that were in place. Inhumane systems that would not be needed if Democracy was represented equally, or a equally educated Black, White, or any man of color were hired based purely on character/knowledge/rapport/skills. Instead we are a nation so steeped in the color of skin America is naked for the world to see no longer is it in the dark. Our struggle with democracy in America is very different. Considering the fact blacks were first seen as animals, tradable livestock, economic bargaining tools, stock, and so forth before being seen as human beings in America. We were seen as 3/5th a man, with no right to vote in the Three-Fifths Compromise. We were then seen as outcast citizens and treat with hatred and distain.

The roots are just now truly being mentioned that peaceful man of change Martin Luther King was assassinated. The whites who march with black are never mentioned! His story is just now really being told, often cast in black and white film to be made to seem like it was oh so long ago. The government killed a man of peaceful protest who marched in the name of change.

Educational and media outlets alike do not focused on black Americans in a positive "light". If it’s not sport or entertainment you wouldn’t see ninety percent of Black Americans on T.V. Going even further to how far America has not come in terms of Race Relations. Even the formerly black-owned BET does not choose to enlighten or educated Black Americans wit the sufficient knowledge of black experiences in American history. Yet, glorifying nameless unimportant Black American Gangster in the name of “up-liftment”… If it weren’t for Sports or Entertainment America would more than likely be the most segregated nation around.

I do not condone Reverend Wright’s comments either. Yet, I understand where he may have been trying to go. He preaches from an angered heart seemly. That mixes some truth, with some empty rhetoric. Then I think about what era he grew up in? What America did he see? What America did he experience? And I can relate, but not allow my heart to harbor the same resentment. When just a year ago while I was doing my job and was asked “When is Fried-chicken Day?” by a group of white co-workers at my government agency or having “nigger” carved on my locker in high school or the occasional white woman that grips her purse, as I counter with warm hello and a smile to ease tension. Maybe I was spared, okay, I know I was spared the trite humdrum racial experience of that time. American History needs not bended truths like his for us to face our past as Americans. That’s something we are doing, and facing as white and blacks alike are voting for a Black Man.

Obama’s position as Black Man has to the most difficult since Martin Luther King. He is black and white, seemly he is not black or white enough, or middle of the road enough to win “US” Americans over. You see he is an “example” of the unspoken pain, resentment, a broken chain of untraditional conformity, he is change, and fear we have buried in America for too long. Maybe one day America embrace itself, it’s brethrens, it’s kin no matter our skin color and change…maybe one day we’ll change…with or without him as president…

As Obama has tried to run a “race forward” “let move on campaign” a “time for change” time and time again America speaks. America sometimes speaks in favor of this man, sometimes against this man, in racist tongues, in color-blind tongues, and/or political tongues. He is tied to both sides. Hopefully he will be judged on his politics, character, knowledge, passion and content. Not the color of his skin or black blood and white blood.

For many Black Americans this is a very proud time for the first time, as may be the case for White Americans as in terms of race, change, and social progress. Michelle Obama was speaking for more people than realized. The complexity of being black and our experience under American Democracy is an abstract, a soulful tug-of-war at times, a pursuit of happiness, and a constant cycle of change toward progress. America is my gift and curse, my pride and pain. Unlike yester years, today, I want my bricks of history, culture, ingenuity, love, and patriotism to be embrace and not short-changed or thought of as less than.

“I love my country though it has shown and reminded me time and time again I am a Black Man…yet I am American…I am proud…I am for change…I am patriot for the Democracy that escapes it’s own true meaning at times. “ – Cory Robinson 2008