Dear editor,
Olivia Pool’s letter to the editor published February 4 is a well-intentioned commentary, but I must respectfully disagree with her regarding some of her comments about racial equality. I would like to take a few moments to address these issues, and perhaps shed some light on undercurrents I believe are overlooked in her letter. Olivia’s remarks are uninformed at best and could be deemed as racially insensitive at worst. I encourage readers read her letter before reading my response for perspective.
Before I proceed further, I want to make it clear, I was not an Obama supporter – I voted against Obama because his views do not represent my own, and because I deemed he did not have the qualifications to hold the office of the President. However, there is significance in that I, as an African-American, had the freedom to choose for whom I would vote, and the freedom to vote against Obama regardless of his skin color.
Olivia, you asked the question, “True or false: The world is a better place for African American children because a black man has been elected to the presidency.”
Literally speaking, the answer is false, as you assert. However, figuratively speaking, the answer is true. The phrase “a better place,” Olivia, is a figurative statement, a statement about hope. Hope is not always based on fact – it is defined as expectation, faith, and optimism. For the first time, Olivia, I can look into my own boys’ eyes and say, ‘you could grow up to be president,’ and the proof is before them. Do you realize that before Jan. 20, 2009, it was nothing more than a vain hope, a dream without evidence? That is a reality that has changed with the election of this president.
Olivia, I respectfully submit that you have asked the wrong question. A better question would be, “Do the many African American children in this country now have an undeniable example that they really can achieve whatever they want? “ My answer is YES, absolutely!
Surely, you cannot deny that the election of President Barack Obama – regardless of the percentage of victory – confirms that things have indeed changed in the 50+ years since the Civil Rights movement officially began– that regardless of political motivation, this country took an unprecedented step forward in its long journey from yesteryear, where a 14 year old black boy could be beaten to death for whistling at a woman.? Is it an important step? YES! It is every bit as important as the 72 year struggle to give women the right to vote. August 26, 1920 is deemed as an important date in American History because women were given that right. Similarly, I guarantee you that January 20, 2009 will forever be tied as a stamp of confirmation on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Olivia, you are not old enough to fully grasp the history of the Civil Rights struggle in our country. You are literally a generation removed from the culmination of years of strife that resulted in the Civil Rights Act. Although there appears to be an academic knowledge in your letter regarding racial equality, your letter displays a lack of understanding regarding the depth of emotion, violence, and hatred sweeping the country during the battle for civil rights.
Let me work point by point through your letter, and offer some insight from a different perspective.
You stated, “Many people… might label it (the election of Obama) an accomplishment for the minorities of our nation. They might join McGonigal’s friend in assuming that a minority in the oval office means a brighter future for children of minority background. But in assuming this, I would assert, these individuals would be mistaken.
You criticize Mr. McConigal’s friend for his statement, “The world is now a better place for my two boys,” and you cannot begin walk in his shoes. You make a broad stroke assertion that these individuals would be mistaken. Had you stated that you did not understand the statements of McConigal’s friend or the sentiments of such individuals, I would not be writing this response. It is perfectly fine to admit we do not understand issues relating to a person from different background and life experience. However, you overstep your place by deeming as mistaken the sentiments of a population that has endured suffering for generation after generation.
Olivia, how dare you call them mistaken? How dare you pass judgment on what you do not understand? How dare you assume you have any understanding into the lives of those who have made a statement like Mr. McConigal’s friend?
• Have you ever walked a day in the shoes of an African-American or any other ethnic minority?
• Have you ever had to live through the unlawful killing of an aging relative by the predominantly white police force charged with caring for him?
• Have you or your sibling ever been wrongfully harassed by a policeman because you were admittedly profiled?
• Have you ever had to question whether you were given a job interview simply to “meet a quota” in a hiring policy because of the color of your skin…or even worse, perhaps were refused an opportunity because of the color of your skin or your ethnic heritage?
• Do you have to live with the factual knowledge that you father, as an enlisted naval career man, was refused the right to go to officer school for more than a decade because he was black, even though he was one of the highest-ranking enlisted men in the fleet at the time?
• Have you ever had to wrestle with the question of whether or not your grades were low perhaps because of your color, when you compare your answers to a friend’s and realize they are exactly the same – but your friend received a higher grade?
The above questions are just a tiny glimpse into the experiences surrounding my own life as an African-American, and yet I was raised in a good family in middle-class suburban, predominantly white communities. Because of my background, I can fully understand the sentiment shared by McConigal’s friend and many others. I grew up hearing African-Americans repeat a phrase time and again in debates about the state of racial equality since the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964; “I’ll believe it when I see a black man in office,”- translated, ”I’ll believe it when a black man is elected president.” I can specifically remember a good friend of my father’s saying the above in conversations I overheard over 30 years ago as a child. I was not at all surprised to hear that my father met his friend in Washington last January to attend the inauguration, to prove that the day had come. When I talked to my father after the inauguration, he told me they both cried during the event because they did not know if this day would ever come.
Perhaps you should do an in-depth study of the Civil Rights movement of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s to retrace what many citizens like my own parents and grandparents had to endure, instead of disparaging their sentiments? Perhaps you should take a trip to Birmingham, Alabama and stand on the grounds of the 16th Street Baptist Church, where on September 15, 1963, Bobby Cherry, Robert Chambliss, and members of a splinter KKK group blew up the building, killing 4 young African American girls in retaliation for the work of SCLC leaders campaigning to register African Americans to vote. Perhaps you should visit the Civil Rights museum in Atlanta, look at the pictures, and read the testimonies of those who lived through the times. Perhaps you should take a trip to Memphis to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was killed on April 15, 1968 – the hotel where my family was forced to stay only 6 weeks before that date BECAUSE WE WERE BLACK.
Now I do agree with you in one issue – Obama did nothing to earn the acclaim as “the man who changed history “– he is simply the person who happened to be in the right place at the right time when our nation chose to place a black man in the presidential office for the first time in history.
You state:
• Racial equality once demanded that everyone, regardless of their skin color, would be permitted to stand on equal footing. Legislation such as affirmative action sought to institute these principles as laws and correct the social climate of our nation, but through such action and in our fervor to bring about the justice that minorities deserve, we erroneously attempted to destroy inequality by placing minority accomplishment on a separate scale.
Now I do agree with you that ideally, there should not be a separate scale in hiring practices, enrollment, and other areas. Perhaps in reading history books, it appears the laws passed made this a foregone conclusion, but the reality was far different. I do not understand your assertion that ‘racial equality once demanded…equal footing.” If that was the case, there would have been no need for the Civil Rights movement, nor the watchdog groups who monitored political legislation in the years after the Civil Rights act. I believe your lack of historical perspective is simply because you grew up in a different world than that found in 1964. You grew up in a world that had already wrestled with issues of racial equality – the post Civil Rights era,
• where a TV show about an upper middle class black family was the top show on the air
• where a prominent African-American had already run for the president
• where African-Americans hold terminal positions as head coaches of professional teams
• Where African-Americans are a part of every portion of politics, sports, and entertainment.
That was NOT the reality of the world when I was a child, let alone in my parents’ and your grandparents’ generation.
The principles the government felt compelled to implement over 46 years ago were a necessity in many cases because the American society in general – businesses, schools, churches, organizations – refused to grant equal rights to African-Americans, and set up bogus Jim Crow laws as excuses to keep those rights from African Americans. There is no way to fully grasp this unless you have lived it! Did the government make mistakes? Of course – When has government EVER been the ANSWER for human failings? Only CHRIST can truly eliminate the consequences of human failings. However, political leaders and civil rights leaders did the best they could to try to provide equal opportunity.
You state:
• On the day of our president’s inauguration, we unquestioningly joined with those who would proclaim our nation better than it was the day before, simply because he is in office. No Caucasian president has ever been credited with improving the world simply by taking an oath. Our nation’s previous forty-three presidents have been required to do something positive with their presidencies to merit such a complement.
I question this assertion as well. Many people understand that Obama himself does not deserve to be credited with improving the world – though the nominating committee for a certain peace prize may have seen differently. But we do note the significance of his election. Many, like me, also see the greater implications. I realize this president is probably trying to fulfill his over-ambitious agenda because -in the issue of racial equality – he knows he has to be better than any other presidents to validate his presidency. If he is only a mediocre president, it will simply give fuel to those who would say, “See, I knew a black man could not effectively run the presidency of the United States.” As an African-American, there is a part of me screaming, “Don’t blow it, President Obama, for my sake and for the sake of the millions of us who are doing all that we can to dispel stereotypes, break prejudice, and earn our way by the merits of our achievements!” That is a heavy burden to place on any one man, and yet that is the burden this president carries – a burden that NO OTHER president has ever had to carry – let alone the burden of being the chief executive and commander-in-chief of one of the most powerful nations in the world. However, the fact that you and others have to raise the questions you raise makes it very clear that the question of race is still VERY MUCH an issue.
You then state, “If we really want to create equality, we must fight the temptation to think differently about the accomplishments of a black man and a white man. A job well done is a job well done, regardless of who is completing the task to tip the scales of judgment in their favor.”
You speak eloquently, Olivia, of a great ideal – and I want you to know, I wholeheartedly agree with you. However, an ideal on paper is much harder to instill in a society with a history such as ours – and in a world where sin is rampant. The phrase, ‘a job well done is a job well done’ is a wonderful phrase that I want to see lived out as well. Yet, many minorities will tell you it is not that simple.
I encourage you to spend a good portion of your adult life pouring yourself into impoverished communities in a city like Chattanooga. Immerse yourself for a few years in their family-life and school-life. Hear the stories of elderly African-Americans; listen to the experiences of those in my generation, and investigate the trials of their school aged children. Dig deeply into the history of the civil rights movement. Take the time to watch the series, Eyes On the Prize, and read some of the great historical books about the movement. Read through the writings and speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King. Read his words from his “I have a Dream,” speech, which he declared almost 50 years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:
• And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
• I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
• I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
• I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
• I have a dream today!
Olivia, I seek to live that dream every day…and the election of a black man as president IS a step closer to the full realizaton of that dream. Don’t belittle what you cannot understand. Don’t marginalize what it means to minorities of many colors and ethnic backgrounds.
There is so much more I would love to write, but I will close by answering your final point. You say, “true equality demands that we look long and hard at the way we’re accomplishing racial equality, ensuring that we are not simply condemning minorities to fail by creating softer definitions of success.”
Olivia, when an African American child looks at the presidency of Barack Obama, one more excuse for failure HAS been taken away. I normally do not admit this, but it is through the results of legislations which you deride that I – a black man – am able to coach alongside my Caucasian friends and associates at a predominantly white private liberal arts institution in the South – something that would not have been possible in the climate before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I assert that race IS still part of the question. If you still do not understand the sentiments of so many who have been given a new sense of optimism, perhaps you should sit with an African-American and ask questions to gain a little understanding. I encourage you to come to my office, and let me share with you some experiences that perhaps will help you in comprehending the significance of a black man being elected president.
Respectfully submitted,
Leo R. Sayles
Editor’s Note: Leo R. Sayles is responding to Olivia Pool’s letter to the editor, which can be accessed here.