Just a Thought

Race. Color. Skin. Ethnicity. Accent. Homeland. Are these the symbolic words that define every person? Judgment may be immediately passed on a person just by the criteria I listed above? What if Albert Einstein had been a Latino? What if Thomas Edison had been black? Would that have changed this current racially divided landscape that we currently live in? In America there are dreamers, innovators, artists, and engineers, people who look past a simple thing like ethnicity. Yet there are those who still believe the definition of an American is a white Christian and that all other people are simply not at the same moral high ground and thus deserve to be looked down upon. So many of us believed that Obama would be to America as Mandela was for Africa. Obama inspired and captivated Americans. However, the election of Barack Obama has majorly hardened the racial divide. I am not claiming that all Americans who casted their vote against Obama are racists. But I am saying that we have still not overcome. Racism is real it is alive. Racism is alive in Lakeville, Minnesota. Lakeville is my forced home. And I call it that because I am forced to live in this close minded community. Not every person from Lakeville is a racist in fact most aren't. But my very best friends are the living embodiment of a new breed of racism. They are nice to blacks, Asians, Latinos and others whom aren’t white. But when it's just us between the two of them the word "nigger" can be used a hundred times. I admit I've used the word and for a while I didn’t care. But now I've gotten a whole new perspective on race relations and racial understanding. And so now when I hear my friends say these things it hurts. My one very good friend said Hurricane Katrina was OK because who cares New Orleans is just a city of niggers. They say their just kidding. But are they? I am one of their best friends and I am also 25% Black. On the surface I don’t look it, but I am. And even though they are fully aware of my racial background they still continuously use the word nigger in front of me and they ask me questions like': "Cody what has Africa ever done for the world? Stink it up? It is the kind of racism exuded by my two very best friends that scare me. And I ask myself why? Why would they let these hateful, piercing, ugly, disgusting, phrases leave their lips? So I say to you; THINK! OPEN YOUR MINDS AND HEARTS! AND UNDERSTAND….