Our "Post Racial Society"

Let's take a moment and look at all of the reasons why all of this talk about a post-racial America by various blowhards is so absurd.

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when nearly 40 percent of black children under the age of 5 live at or below the poverty line?

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when the level of school segregation for Hispanics is at its highest in forty years and segregation of blacks is back to levels not seen since the late 1960s?

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when the gaps in wealth, income, education and health care have widened over the last eight years?

In 2006, 20.3 percent of blacks were not covered by health insurance, 34.1 percent of Hispanics were not covered by health insurance, compared to only 10.8 percent of whites.

In 2007, the unemployment rate for blacks was twice as high as that for whites.

There are those who will continue to insist that the gap in wealth, income, health care and education is due to an inherent culture of victimization.

There are some who will continue to say, "If people of color only worked harder, they’d be fine."

Well, to put it bluntly, that's an idiotic assumption.

This economy has never provided enough jobs for everyone.

The manner in which education is funded gives a leg up to those who grow up in wealthy districts.

Health insurance is a necessity, more so to those without the means, since they rarely see a doctor.

Like it or not, admit it or not, institutional racism persists.

President Obama once said, “Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

His election and his words redeem some of the sacrifices of so many during the protests at lunch counters and on Southern roads. However, it does not fix nor will it make the racism and bigotry go away overnight.

You still think that we've achieved a post-racial society simply because we have a black president? Well then, consider one more thing, the vast disparities still remaining between the conditions of blacks and whites in America. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median black worker earns just over $600/week, about 80% of what the median white worker makes. Black men are incarcerated at 6.6 times the rate of white men, with almost one in twenty black men in prison. Unemployment rates are nearly twice as high for blacks as for whites in almost every demographic category. Almost half of all young black men without a high school education are out of work nationally.

So much more needs to change before we start spouting off about a "post-racial" society.

Central Coast Cross Burning

People in these here parts are shocked, shocked to think that hate, racism and bigotry has reached the Central Coast. Apparently some of them are under the illusion that those thoughts and feelings don't exist in their little community. Well yeah, it must be nice living inside their heads with Peter Pan, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

For example, Reverend Stephanie Raphael, president of the San Luis Obispo Ministerial Association who said, "I was horrified. We live in a paradise, and I think the first thought was, this can't really be real."

Stephanie needs to get her head out of the sand and focus on what entitled whites do to people of color every day of the year.

Reverend Steph also offered, "Any kind of hate crime is not a joke, it's not a prank. It's designed to intimidate and frighten. We live in a beautiful area, but it's only beautiful if every single person feels safe conducting their lives and living here."
She needs to get herself out into the community and talk to a greater variety of people. She might want to take a translator along to get a clearer picture of how things really are up and down the coast. Reading a few letters to the editors of the area newspapers might give insight as well.

Police assigned extra patrols to the neighborhood in Arroyo Grande — a city that hasn't seen a hate crime in nearly a decade — and rewards were offered for information leading to an arrest.

FBI agents and investigators from the county and the state Department of Justice were involved in the arson and hate-crime probe. Police said $3,500 in rewards were offered.

Officials are saying that there was no evidence that an organized racist group was involved.

So I guess these investigators believe that all racist assholes shave their heads and carry Nazi flags? How obtuse is that?

According to police Cmdr. John Hough, the 11 foot cross was stolen from a garden at Saint John's Lutheran Church weeks ago and set ablaze Friday in a lot behind the house where the family lives.
One of the residents, a 19 year old, saw the flaming cross from her bedroom window. She called the cops who used a garden hose to put out the fire.

Police declined to release the names of the family because the incident was considered a hate crime — the first since 2002 in the city of 17,000 in mostly rural San Luis Obispo County, a region of vast farms, picturesque towns and a state university campus.

More than 30 clergy members signed a letter to the editor of the San Luis Obispo Tribune urging that the crime be taken seriously.

Well that's nice, but shouldn't their letter have gone to the cops or the FBI?

The 100 pound cross was usually bolted to a base in the garden, but each year it was taken inside the sanctuary during the Lenten season before being moved to a beach two miles away to be decorated with flowers for an Easter sunrise service.

Pastor Randy Ouimette said that the theft at the church was discovered March 5 but that the robbery may have occurred weeks earlier, indicating that they're not really all that good at keeping an eye on things.

More than 100 members of the congregation signed a giant card of compassion they planned to deliver to the family with two handmade prayer quilts — even though they didn't know the family. The pastor said, "We wanted to bathe this family in prayer and love. Obviously they're feeling rejection and ... hate."

Well guess what pastor? The chances are excellent that this was done by Bible-totin' fire-breathing assholes who attend church and call themselves Christian.