I was in the dentist office some years ago and there was a little girl about 5 with her mother sitting next to me. I talked with the mother and found out they had just moved to Florida from Iceland. The little girl seemed fascinated with a black woman sitting on the other side of the waiting room and she went over with her coloring book and asked the woman if she wanted to color with her. 

They colored together for some time then suddenly the little girl picked up the woman's hand turned the palm toward her mother and said "look mom she's not dark everywhere". Well I didn't think it was possible for her mother to get any paler but she did. The little girl went right back to coloring while her mother clambered to explain that they had just moved her from Iceland and that the woman was to her knowledge the first black person her child had ever seen.   

The moral to this story; we can acknowledge and even embrace the differences between races without judging them. The child clearly realized the woman was different from her all along and embraced it. Now eventually that child is going to learn American history, the good and the bad, (I hope neither of you is suggesting we teach our kids revisionist history), and hopefully she'll learn the right lesson from it but we're barely a generation out of that dark chapter. It's not ancient history and we can't simply ignore it.

Awesome point and great story.

You actually contradict you point that we don't need to talk about culture. If we are one America, how you be in a diverse neighborhood? You actually make the point for us. Our diversity in this country does not need to contribute to our division.

I am sorry if learning about African-American's contributions to history offend you. But it is a part of American history. It is, at times, a dark chapter in our history. Does that make you uncomfortable?

Skin color has nothing to do with the issue. That is a very myopic way to look at it. I have the same skin color as a Nigerian and we would culturally have very little in common. That is a mere physical expression of the difference in culture. But there are different cultures (or perhaps more appropriately subcultures) in this country. They are different, not better than each other. North is different from South. California is different from New York. And yes, black is different from white. It would seem that to recognize that latter makes you a racist. That is a fundamental problem with relations in this country.

You are confusing "culturally diverse" with skin colour.

 

Tell that to anybody who voted for Obama because it was time for a black President, not to me. I would have voted for Hillary, more likely for McCain, or for Rice if she had run.

 

I can't speak for JillUser but I can say that I am not offended by learning about African-American contributions to our history, it is an extremely important aspect of our history.  What I do have a problem with is when it is emphasized rather than just made part of learning about our nation's history.  There was certainly a time when it was needed to be emphasized because the history classes barely mentioned a word about African-American contributions, however much like Affirmative Action I think it's necessity has past and we should be teach about our nation's history as a whole with no emphasis on race at all.  Naturally classes need to discuss slavery, the civil war, MLK, George Washington Carver, etc. but it should simply be part of the curriculum not emphasized at one particular time of the year.  There should be U.S history, not history based on race (whether it be white, black, or purple).

It neither offends nor makes me uncomfortable.  I'm just fed up with the disproportionate amount of attention given to it.  I'm sick to death of white people feeling like they need to apologize for something neither they nor their parents nor their grandparents did to people who never experienced it themselves.  I have never in my life treated anyone differently because of their skin color.  I certainly got treated differently because of mine when I lived in an almost completely African American dorm in college.  I was absolutely shocked because that sort of thing never occured to me.  I got a real lesson on how blacks can dismiss you because you aren't a "sista" but if you acted the same way toward them, well then you're a racist.  We have a long way to go and I feel we aren't on the right track at all.

Thank you El-Duderino!

Yes to your second part!  And hence my statement of the validation of King on November 4.  As to how they emphasize race - by every utterance by the tingly legged bozos in the media.  We are not to judge him as a man, we are not to judge what he says, does or does not do based upon him as a man, but as a BLACK man.  The media is awash in its sickening quota system that we have to judge him not by the measure of a Washington or Roosevelt, but as a BLACK man who is president.  And that is what saddens me.

For the most part, I dont think most Americans who voted for him or most Americans period are looking at him as a BLACK man who is president, but a PRESIDENT that is also black.  I still have a lot of hope for America, because most of the population is not as stupid and racist as the tingly legged media or the closet racists of the left.  Unfortunately, the one side has a lot of air time to try to push their agenda (as sickening as it is) and the other has the seats of power right now to push it.  And that is what saddens me.

No one, not even this blog, is asking that.  What this blog is about is not saying "There goes the President!  Hey Ma!  He is also black!".  What it is saying is that we cannot compare him to Jefferson or Washington because after all, they were white (or whatever other qualifier you put on there).

America has come far, but unfortunately parts still remain mired in a closet racism that is going to be harder to root out than the overt racism of sheet wearing clowns.

Exactly!  Obama is Black!  What a shock.  But he is our president, and as such I will judge him based upon what he does and says, not what he does or says except to excuse him for being black.

We should never forget who did, nor should we accept the responsibility for what they did.  I am not my father.  If I perpetuate the divide, then I am sinning.  But if I choose to look beyond it, then I am not perpetuating it just because my father did.  Or even worse (as it is racist but apparently acceptable today) because some clown in a white sheet who is white is perpetuating it.

Yes, like HIS executive orders that he has to ask his lawyer what's in it in front of the press?

LINK

No, it is not about Obama.  If I write about the founding of AMerica, that does not mean I am writing Washington's biography.  They are linked, that is sure, just as day into night is linked, but they are not the same.  And this is not about Celebrating Obama's election or inaugeration.  Again, people read, but do not understand.  This is about how we are told we must judge him differently. We must judge his acceptance speech differently.  We must judge his actions differently.  And I have to ask all who claim we have to, in all seriousness, why?  He is one of 44, not one of one.

No, again you are missing it.  Do you see a BLACK President?  Or a President who is BLACK?  That is not the litmus test, but it is an indication.  King said "judge by the content of his character" as the first thing, not the last, or middle.  We are to judge Obama on the content of his character without a qualifier of what color he is.  No one is slamming anyone for celebrating his inaugeration.  What I AM slamming are those that stop me from saying "Now, Carter (or any previous president) did this that way......."

It really matters not what color, creed or race Obama is.  It really matters not if he is the smartest or the dumbest.  It matters when we are not allowed to think of him, praise him, or criticize him without first genuflecting at the alter of liberalism and adding the qualifier "for a black man".

Thank you!

Not as long as good honest people continue to work against it.  America has overcome (and minimized) overt racism.  Now we have to work on the closet racists.

Yes it is, and a perfect example of what I am talking about.  NO president in the history of this nation has gotten 100% of any ethnic block because he is a member of that block.  But Liberals have to phrase it all in that manner because that is the way they think!  Those people condemning you for not voting for Obama are the same ones that voted FOR him because they wanted to show everyone they were not racist - when in reality they are the worst kind.