According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll as reported by MSN News, nearly 90% of blacks support Obama. Race is definitely a factor, so let's talk... let's talk honestly.
You'd think Americans, in particular African-Americans, would have learned from History that when we focus on the color of one's skin instead of qualification, shame will be our lot.
There isn't an American, regardless of race, creed, or color, who hasn't faced obstacles in his or her lifetime -- so let's get that straight right now. Some obstacles are more difficult than others... yeah, so? Welcome to life.
But the manner in which blacks dealt with obstacles, such as discrimination, prior to the 1960's, before Affirmative Action, truly inspired a greatness in them, from which we have all gained. The blacks rightly took the moral high-ground. Discrimination, they taught America, is an injustice; it is ignorance.
Before Affirmative Action, one of the main reasons, if not THE main reason, blacks succeeded in whatever profession or industry they chose to enter is because they were more qualified than their white counterparts, or they built a better product, or they accomplished something of a higher merit. Plain and simple. Am I advocating the return of discrimination? In no way! But I am pointing out that because of an obstacle, blacks rose to a higher standard than whites. They had to... Now, they don't.
They don't have to be more qualified, more experienced, more anything, just equal. But the irony is, after attaining equality, it appears they no longer aspire to it. They may, as an Obama candidacy clearly has proven beyond any doubt, be totally inexperienced and unqualified... and it is to their shame, not glory.
Whatever "hopes," whatever "dreams," blacks hold in their hearts will not be accomplished by Obama's skin color, nor his 143 days of quasi- experience in the U.S. Senate. He's not qualified to hold the job and he lacks the experience to even be good at it. This is one truth that cannot be denied... It may be ignored, unnoticed, forgotten, but not denied.
So what will an Obama presidency bring? Exactly what History has taught us whenever we see color instead of qualifications: Shame. This time, it's Black Shame.
After all the struggles, after all the hardships that so many of our African-American friends, brothers and sisters, have endured and rose above, 90% of them today, blinded by media blitz, fail to see their own racial hypocrisy. What a legacy this generation will leave its children – from the days when the quality of a man's character actually meant something, to the days when only blackness counts.
What a shame.
