Our+Racial+Soul

 Our Racial Soul  We have accomplished quite a bit when it comes to race relations in America...

From the Harlem Renaissance...

 code I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then.

Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed--

code I, too, am America.

-Langston Hughes

[|Learn more about the Harlem Renaissance] We have protested...



And now with our new President... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Barack_Obama_Oath_of_Office_during_Inaugural.ogv/mid-Barack_Obama_Oath_of_Office_during_Inaugural.ogv.jpg

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Yet the ghost of our past ugly race relations still haunts us today....

http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/july64/images/mag_car.jpg http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/african/2000/1965_06b.jpg 

**Incident**
 Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee; I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Balimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember.

-Countee Cullen

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"..the legal barrier which seperated the two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in manners of the country; slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary." -Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, p. 416



Despite what we have observed and learned, race is still a problem in America today, whether we like it or not. We must work hard if we want to have equal opportunities for all races in America.

"The crisis in black America is threefold...economic...political...and spiritual." -Cornell West 

http://www.pixelmarx.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/son-listen-to-whats-wrong-in-america.jpg 

http://black-and-right.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/black_and_white_racism_race_relatio.png  Yet, there is hope of the future...

=<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">“I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it.” = <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> [|Margaret Atwood]



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">We've got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country. We've got a lot of pent-up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding. ... This country wants to move beyond these kinds of things. Speech on race, March 18, 2008.
 * -Barack Obama**

Reflection on Our Racial Soul American Beauty-JennyAmerican Beauty