Joseph Lowery, considered by some to be the "dean" of the civil rights movement, gave the benediction at yesterday's inauguration. He closed with this little ditty:
"We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around... When yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right."
Can anyone tell me how this is not a blatantly racist portrayal of minorities as helpless victims of evil white oppressors? You'd think he is stuck in 1958 Mississippi. The fact that BO was elected president proves that his depiction of America is way out of date.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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2 comments:
D², I too had my gizzard frosted a bit when I heard that. Until this morning, listening to Mark Davis' show on WBAP.
A 52 year old black caller, and apparently a conservative, called in and explained that in his youth, perhaps up through the early '70s, there was a playground rhyme or ditty that had those lines about the black, red, brown, yellow and white.
So, the take-away seems to be that Lowery wasn't sitting up nights thinking of ways to slap white Americans - he just incorporated a playground rhyme into his speech. This seems to be corroborated by the chuckles heard from some in the audience who recognized it from their childhood memories.
Of course,it's understood that a double-standard would be applied if a white poet or civil rights activist decided to weave "eenie-meenie..." into his speech.
I can hear the uproar now...
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