There are times when it seems as if there is no rhyme or reason to life. After this long and hard fought presidential election, I had begun to hope that maybe America would settle down. That just maybe we could come together and share a common bond that places the future of our nation above our differences. The older I get, the harder it is to hang on to optimism.
Don't get me wrong, I am still absolutely certain that the number of good people in America far outnumber the evil. What amazes me is how dedicated to evil that minority is, and how no matter what happens they will not allow themselves to ever see themselves as having anything in common with those they are convinced are inferior to themselves. Throughout history we have seen that often an aggressive minority changes a nation. No place is this phenomena more clear than in the case of Nazi Germany where a majority of people stood by and allowed themselves to be taken over by an aggressive, focused minority. We saw it during the days of segregation in America where the majority stood by as organized minorities like the Ku Klux Klan rampaged without fear of being brought to justice. Radical social conservatives are keenly aware of this possibility which is why they never stop their campaigns to misinform and confuse the people, ever aware that misinformed people will often act against their own best interests and thus help create the climate in which they, like Hitler and his cohorts are able to take control by proclaiming themselves the saviors of the people.
My point in all this is the fact that I have begun to see what I call The Obama Effect. The Obama Effect is what I call the growing incidences in which it is made clear to me that some whites hold educated and accomplished non-whites in contempt in the belief that their success somehow is leading to an erosion in their access to opportunity. I have experienced this especially in dealing with bitter underprivileged white people, often unemployed or under employed who are convinced that a rising black ruling class in America spells disaster for them. They hold all liberals/progressives responsible and are a big reason why you see so many people who support the causes that benefit the ultra-rich despite the fact that this support works against their own best interests and in fact contribute to the factors causing the misery they attribute to educated and accomplished non-whites.
What alarms me is also the number of Blacks, Asians and Latinos who align themselves with these people, somehow lost in a misguided belief that their best interests are served by attempting to curry favor with them. Too bad they don't understand that history has proven that if such people as radical social conservatives do somehow become in control, the first people they subjugate and kill off are those who were willing to betray their own, even if it did benefit them. I defy in fact anyone to find anytime in history in which people betrayed their own and wound up better off in the long run as a result.
The most stunning example of the Obama Effect is finding myself in places of business in which I disappear. It has happened so many times recently in such wide spread and unrelated places that I cannot help but begin to see a pattern. In these places I simply am not there. Only if I speak up and insist that I be recognized am I served. At first I could not understand the point, but now I get it. I may seem affluent, educated and/or accomplished, but I am made to feel belittled by being forced to demand to be acknowledged. It is in fact a very subtle and powerful way of discriminating, one in which it becomes very difficult to prove you are being mistreated, but very powerful nonetheless. If you become angry and demanding, you can easily be provoked to a point in which you become the problem and the police can now be called. If you handle it well, in a careful pragmatic way, you get what you came for but must leave with the knowledge that you had to make this extra effort to be served.
I do not know where this will lead. But I see clearly that there are those who will never accept anyone who is not white as equals. For these sad people the illusion of being superior is all they have.
