When Can We Speak Honestly About Racial Issues?

I attended a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration twelve months ago that I continue to think about, especially today as we acknowledge his birthday once again.

I continue to think about that particular event because of how others in attendance responded to the speaker after the event. The audience was racially mixed. This is relevant because it is the foundation for the responses I saw, heard, and read via e-mail.

The event I attended last year had, in my opinion, a great speaker offering truths and insights that were very relevant to the occasion. He said things that made me and others clap in agreement and even stand on our feet a time or two. His speech was just the right length, contained humor, passion, and wisdom.

During the speaker's presentation, Blacks were admonished for believing that we have arrived because some can now live in nice neighborhoods, drive fancy cars, and earn fat paychecks. He reminded us of the struggle that began so many years ago and that still continues and that we have to help our own selves out of these troubles.

He reminded us that we cannot be satisfied with the current conditions in our urban neighborhoods and schools. He chided Blacks for spending and not saving and for not creating significant wealth. He made it clear that he believes Whites are not without fault for the current conditions in Black America and that they therefore should be doing more to help.

After the event was over, hardly anyone came up to speak to the speaker and his family, I know because I did. Immediately after the program, I heard a version of this statement multiple times "Right message, wrong audience, wrong event."

For days after the event, attendees were circulating e-mails, about how embarrassed they were and that the speaker should have been vetted better, and someone even suggested that the speech text of future speakers should be reviewed before they can speak at the event.

To this day, I do not understand those responses to the speech. I kept being told that the message was inappropriate for a racially mixed audience. Whites don't want to come to an event and "hear that kind of speech."

I have several White friends that I consider our relationships to be fairly close. I would like to think that while they may have been uncomfortable with a comment or two from the speaker, they would have been inspired to do better, just as I, an African-American, was inspired to do better.

Is it OK for an African American to admonish his own, but not Whites? If so, how can we truly achieve racial unity and reconciliation? Shouldn't we be able to speak honestly, during events such as one designed to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King?

Why the Tears? by guest blogger: Luke Bobo

A white friend of mine who happens to be a pastor asked me recently, "Luke, do you think Obama's presidency will help with curing or rectifying the racial divide in our country." (He is 38 years old and I am 48 years old; that's important to know because that 10 year differential is important as I have seen 10 more years of 'stuff' than my friend.) I said to him, "Let's see if he gets elected first." (I was thinking to myself, this will never happen. I am a realist, you see.)

My wife and I watched and heard Obama give his acceptance speech last night in Illinois. I could see my wife crying; I was shedding some tears. This morning around 5 am, I thought about our tears. And I asked why were we shedding tears? Perhaps, Obama's election is in part restitution or pay back for how my grandparents were treated during the Jim Crow days in which they had to get off the sidewalk to allow a white person to pass. Perhaps, it was Obama's story of that 106 year old African American lady who voted for this first time.

Perhaps, his election is restitution for how my granddad who served in WWII aboard a navy ship was relegated to the mess hall (because that's all blacks were capable of doing). Perhaps, my wife was emotional because she remembers being told by an accounting professor, "You people don't do well in accounting." Perhaps, Obama's election is pay back for all the times a finger was flipped at me, or the times I was called 'Nigger', or the time I was called a 'token' engineer.

Perhaps, his election is restitution for all the injustices done to blacks in this country (slavery, the beating of Rodney King, Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, etc., etc.). Perhaps, Obama's election means so much to my wife and I because maybe, just maybe, African Americans will be judged by their character and intelligence and skills and not by the color of their skin.

Perhaps, Obama's election means so much because maybe other African Americans will be awakened and rise above their situations and not settled for mediocrity. Perhaps other African American men will rise up and be history makers! Perhaps, Obama's election means so much because now my son who is only 14 years old can one day become president of these United States. He is glad for Obama's election but also sad because he wanted to be the first African American president!