How ironic is this Life Magazine cover from 42 years ago this week truly is. The caption reads, “The Negro and the Cities: The Cry That Will Be Heard?”
In just the last two days, two stories perhaps beneath the fold, have surfaced revealing how little progress the United States has made on the promise of getting beyond a racist culture when the Civil Rights Movement was in full bloom when the issue of Life Magazine whose cover is pictured above was published less than a month before Dr. Martin Luther King’s loathsome assassination.
There’s something implicitly ironic about the Life magazine cover. The picture is just as relevant in 2010 as it was in 1968. While at the same time, who would ever use the term “negro” to refer to dark pigmented members of our society whose ancestors came mostly from Africa. Since 1968, political correctness has renamed these members of our society Afro-Americans, Blacks, African-Americans, and People-of-Color. The “N” word was a regular part of white conversation outside of the most educated and refined. The urban scene was terrible then and is terrible now. Perhaps educational opportunities were better for some before the massive exodus of White America for the suburbs, a move that essentially re-segregated by zip code and municipal boundaries rather than a deliberate attempt to create all White and all Black schools.
While war raged half a world away, many Americans thought the racial divide was soon to end. On that front, there was much optimism. Who would have anticipated what happened on a second floor balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968?
How much progress has our culture gained? How much remains to be done? How much has gotten worse?
Black Americans are now present on equal status in virtually every pursuit in America, but in the urban ghettos in many cities, on any given night, a young black person will be murdered in cold blood on city streets. How many millions of young black children receive an ineffective education?
The United States has elected as President a man whose father was born in Africa. His mother is a white woman from Kansas. From a historical standpoint, Barack Obama will be identified as the country’s first “black” or African-American president. However, of what connection does Barack Obama have with the great struggle of the black person’s long journey from being ripped from his home in Africa, transported in filthy conditions much like cargo across the Atlantic, and auctioned as private property to slave owners throughout the southeastern United States. From the early 1600’s to the Civil War, most lived as slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution banned slavery, but it wasn’t until 1954 when the Supreme Court banned segregation in public schools. Not until 1965 when the Civil Rights Act was passed were all kinds of racist laws repealed.
Racism was out in the open in 1968. Now it has become more subtle and in so many ways, White America is in denial.
We present two postings here based on news stories in the last few days. One involves the infamous Chicago hate-monger, Louis Farrakhan and his anti-Semitic and anti-White demagoguery before a huge audience this weekend. The other involves the dismissal of a Towson University art professor who used the “N” word though not directing it as a slur against any person in particular or against the race on the whole. It was simply a stupid moronic reference that was bound to inflame passions.
We encourage all our readers to take these issues to heart and realize our culture still has much to accomplish and the time for excuses ran out years ago.
Right Minded Fellow will continue to speak out for striving to provide quality education for all Americans and that we can no longer permit excuses for the continued evidence that so many black students, particularly males, are not meeting the most basic required standards indicative of academic success. We will also make it painfully hard to ignore that if you’re white and live in Maryland, you have little to worry about being murdered, but if you’re black primarily in Baltimore City, on any given night odds are better than not another young man will die on city streets.
Even the most enlightened political solutions based on incentives and opportunity will succeed until there is a fundamental change of heart where we get beyond racial distinctions and accept our responsibility as citizens to make sure all Americans have the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a free enterprise society which rewards achievement.
In just the last two days, two stories perhaps beneath the fold, have surfaced revealing how little progress the United States has made on the promise of getting beyond a racist culture when the Civil Rights Movement was in full bloom when the issue of Life Magazine whose cover is pictured above was published less than a month before Dr. Martin Luther King’s loathsome assassination.
There’s something implicitly ironic about the Life magazine cover. The picture is just as relevant in 2010 as it was in 1968. While at the same time, who would ever use the term “negro” to refer to dark pigmented members of our society whose ancestors came mostly from Africa. Since 1968, political correctness has renamed these members of our society Afro-Americans, Blacks, African-Americans, and People-of-Color. The “N” word was a regular part of white conversation outside of the most educated and refined. The urban scene was terrible then and is terrible now. Perhaps educational opportunities were better for some before the massive exodus of White America for the suburbs, a move that essentially re-segregated by zip code and municipal boundaries rather than a deliberate attempt to create all White and all Black schools.
While war raged half a world away, many Americans thought the racial divide was soon to end. On that front, there was much optimism. Who would have anticipated what happened on a second floor balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968?
How much progress has our culture gained? How much remains to be done? How much has gotten worse?
Black Americans are now present on equal status in virtually every pursuit in America, but in the urban ghettos in many cities, on any given night, a young black person will be murdered in cold blood on city streets. How many millions of young black children receive an ineffective education?
The United States has elected as President a man whose father was born in Africa. His mother is a white woman from Kansas. From a historical standpoint, Barack Obama will be identified as the country’s first “black” or African-American president. However, of what connection does Barack Obama have with the great struggle of the black person’s long journey from being ripped from his home in Africa, transported in filthy conditions much like cargo across the Atlantic, and auctioned as private property to slave owners throughout the southeastern United States. From the early 1600’s to the Civil War, most lived as slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution banned slavery, but it wasn’t until 1954 when the Supreme Court banned segregation in public schools. Not until 1965 when the Civil Rights Act was passed were all kinds of racist laws repealed.
Racism was out in the open in 1968. Now it has become more subtle and in so many ways, White America is in denial.
We present two postings here based on news stories in the last few days. One involves the infamous Chicago hate-monger, Louis Farrakhan and his anti-Semitic and anti-White demagoguery before a huge audience this weekend. The other involves the dismissal of a Towson University art professor who used the “N” word though not directing it as a slur against any person in particular or against the race on the whole. It was simply a stupid moronic reference that was bound to inflame passions.
We encourage all our readers to take these issues to heart and realize our culture still has much to accomplish and the time for excuses ran out years ago.
Right Minded Fellow will continue to speak out for striving to provide quality education for all Americans and that we can no longer permit excuses for the continued evidence that so many black students, particularly males, are not meeting the most basic required standards indicative of academic success. We will also make it painfully hard to ignore that if you’re white and live in Maryland, you have little to worry about being murdered, but if you’re black primarily in Baltimore City, on any given night odds are better than not another young man will die on city streets.
Even the most enlightened political solutions based on incentives and opportunity will succeed until there is a fundamental change of heart where we get beyond racial distinctions and accept our responsibility as citizens to make sure all Americans have the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a free enterprise society which rewards achievement.
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