Let us hope that we find god, not the devil, in the 'details' of this countrywide racial transformation symbolically manifesting itself today, the holiday celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, one day before the inauguration of Barack Obama..
Besides a racial change Obama's rise to power also marks a generational change of leadership. To see the current situation we need to see this also in the context of the accomplished dream of racial equality. The age of Jeremiah Wright and deep bitterness manifest in political abuses is also, hopefully, over.
The generation of Obama, also mine, marks a generation where those hatreds are much less - for one we do not know a world without civil rights. We do know racial hate, but we can see its effects - it is a mark of backwardness.
But there is a hidden problem that still faces us - those who have relied upon the manipulation of that hate for their profit in the public arena, including the public corporation.
Locally, curiously, these are the same folks that have made our regional contribution to the current financial crisis. It is my opinion that abuses of political correctness have been used to justify theft from the taxpayer, the stock shareholder, and the investor - whether it be individual or a union pension plan.
The folks who have created this are lawyers, lawyers who have gained control of the government and corporate bureacracy's by the manipulation of workplace racial, and sexual, hatreds. This is Obama's profession and this problem is no doubt present in Chicago. (Though I cannot speak to the details of its manifestation there.)
One recent example would be the Port of Seattle - one has to wonder if those financial abuses engineered by the associated legal staff were in fact implemented under threat of racial or sexual allegations.
Facing us now is the question of the deep bore tunnel in Seattle. Though supporters claim a consensus and a promise of local funding it is quite clear that this consensus does not exist and the promise of local financial support is at best questionable. As per the usual we can expect those who oppose this project, in part because of support for other ideas, in part because of the nature of the time will be painted as hate filled obstructionists by the usual limousine liberal crew of Downtown Seattle.
It is in fact the case that these folks, calling themselves democrat and republican, are the backwards ones foisting hate upon the next generation rather than place the responsiblity where it belonged, on the leaders of the previous.
For Obama to be a great President he must bring these people to account, not foster their mistakes on the next generation, recreating the cycle of abuse.
America is human and not perfect. What has made us great in the past is a continuing reach for those goals we sometimes hypocritically first cite.
In spite of racial progress that continuing to move forward is at risk, and the fault of that is the legal profession, Obama's own. If he fails to bring these people to the same law held to the rest of us we are doomed, for sure.
And there would be no bigger tragedy than for that to fall on the body of a black man.
