Recently a white male coworker said in response to a friend complaining about his treatment by a police officer that he was above ground and to be mindful that is not a given for many an African Americans who have an encounter with law enforcement. An African American athlete cannot fail to put hand over heart during the national anthem while white athletes do the same without comment. It is not an equal playing field. There are those who are critical on the one hand and ignorant on the other. They deny racial bias when it is all too clearly there. What do I make of the rise in public racism? One thing is that the legacy of slavery throws a long shadow and that all steps forward come with the inevitable steps backwards. The magnificence of electing black man to the Presidency, a man who is "centered, happy, and knows how to love a woman", to quote Frank Bruni, that amazing step forward has been countered by inevitable backsliding. May it be silenced in November.
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