We need to get past this hangup about race
Image by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley
Sometimes working for a newspaper sucks. You don’t get to sit back and enjoy events like today’s inauguration. You’re too busy trying to come up with local angles, scrounging for art, installing live video feeds and coordinating with reporters in the field. Inaugurations, hurricanes, terrorist attacks – they’re occasions for work – massive amounts of work. Sometimes I think it would be nice to simply plant my increasingly ample backside on the couch and watch it all unfold on TV. Let somebody else worry about fresh copy, databases and high–resolution photos. But that would make me a bad journalist and I hope when it’s all said and done, I wasn’t a bad journalist.
Throughout the day I saw a gamut of reaction: proud black Americans celebrating the ascendancy of one of their own … proud white Americans declaring an end to racism … angry black Americans decrying the election of an “Uncle Tom” … angry white Americans dressed in black to mourn the death of America.
It’s all so stupid.
We need to get past this hangup about race – and that goes for whites and blacks. Racism, just like tolerance, is color blind. Plenty of racists to go around on both sides of the ethnicity fence. Until that stops nothing will really change.
What’s important is this: that Obama do a good job as president. This country has a lot of problems and while it’s fashionable to believe no one man can make a difference, that’s not true. Just look at what George W. Bush did in eight years.
I want Obama to restore America’s stature in the world. I’m tired of being berated as a warmonger and a voracious consumer of resources. I’d like to be able to dress like an American while traveling abroad and not worry about having my head blown off.
I want Obama to do something about the debt. America is owned by the Chinese, the British and Japan. The government has operated like a kid with Mom and Dad’s credit card for decades. It’s got to stop. Interest payments on the debt will eat up half the budget in the near future. Can’t do much good when you’re sending half your income to Visa and not even paying down the principal.
I want Obama to do everything he can short of socialism to encourage alternate energy development. The oil swill has got to stop. We’ve known that for decades. Oil is a finite resource and it’s causing irreparable environmental damage. Now is as good a time as any to work on its replacement.
I want the environment to be cleaner. I nearly choked on my TV dinner when I heard Bush tout his environmental record during his farewell address. Bush’s environmental record is the equivalent of an asteroid strike – it’ll take decades to undo the damage he’s done.
I want white collar workers to be held accountable for their crimes. I guy who sticks up a convenience store for a couple of hundred bucks does more jail time than a guy who steals millions from an investment firm. That’s just classism, pure and simple. It’s wrong.
I don’t care about rhetoric and speeches. I don’t care about a person’s race. I want quality leadership, which springs from intelligence, courage and integrity.
Is Obama all those things? I hope so. All the “Uncle Tom” haters or the people dressed in black should give the man a chance.
Notice I said “man.” Not black. Not Democrat.
Just man.
Let’s hope for the best.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .