Have White People Lost Their Minds or Do We All Need Strait Jackets?

Politics is one of the past times in America that we celebrate on a bi-annual basis. We love to hear and talk about political subjects during mid-term elections and when it’s time to place a new person in the White House. So any angry or bigoted behavior that we exhibit usually quells the day after the election.

So maybe all of this anger that we’re seeing is just politically manufactured. We can’t really be this crazy, right? We don’t really carry guns to Presidential rallies and create militias to overthrow our government, do we?

Well, maybe we do. Maybe we are just that afraid of a changing political dynamic. Maybe the government really is out of control and needs a good old fashioned coup to bring some sanity back to our soil, African style.

As much as people would like to believe that this country is going to hell in a McDonald’s happy meal box, it really isn’t. Shhhh—don’t tell anyone but our country is going to be just fine.

Let’s start with the jittery and fearful middle-aged white Americans who are angry that their country is being ripped from their finger tips. Many of those in the Tea Party have claimed that the United States government is spending way too much money and that the middle class isn’t being taken care of properly.

Now if we look back on the history of these here United States, the middle class has always been part of the American dream. The house with the white picket fence, two cars, a few kids, a dog, and a lawn in both the front yard and the backyard is what we used to daydream about.

Over time that dream evolved to where both husband and wife have good paying jobs and a solid nest egg for retirement. I mean if all else fails there is social security to pick you up after you’re done working, right?

Well, not anymore. That dream, the one that’s been shoved down our throats for decades, no longer exists. In fact the fundamental idea of the family has been turned on its ear, nose, and throat.

We can all remember the videos of the wife greeting the husband at the door after work, the kids playing on the floor before supper, and everybody sitting around the dinner table talking about their day? Like the doctor in my all-time favorite movie said when Brother Malcolm was assassinated, “The man that you knew as Malcolm X is no more.” Well, the dream that you knew as American is no more.

For decades African-Americans have been resigned to the fact that the dream that so many of us wanted was so far out of reach that it was stupid to even, well, dream about it. Many of us lived without a dinner table, so we would sit around the table in the den to watch TV.

That car in the front yard either belonged to the insurance man or the bill man. That picket fence was there when we “bought” the house, so it just looks dirty and decrepit. Oh and that grass hadn’t been cut in weeks because the lawn mower is in need of repair and we just don’t have the money to get it fixed.

That description was the reality for millions, not just black folks.

So the very idea that so many white Americans are fighting to keep what they knew so dear for decades is a little insulting.

Don’t get me wrong, we are all afraid of change. A black man is elected President and the man that you have entrusted to guide you politically for years, like Rush Limbaugh, keeps telling you that he wants to get white America back for slavery. Better yet—that same man is telling you that you have a right to be angry that your world is changing.

Don’t even get me started on immigration and association of crossing the border and drugs.

Listen there is no patent on anger. We all have the right to be mad about something. If I looked at my 401(k) one day and it was humming along just fine and the next day it was gone, hell I would be mad too.

One day you’re living the life in your three bedroom home in the suburbs and the next the sheriff is telling you to leave because the bank owns the home now, I would be angry too.

If you’ve given 15 years of your life to one company and the next day you were out of a job, you have every right in the world to be mad.

But to fear the changing demographics of America you have no right.

For centuries there has always been one dominant force in this country and that is the color white. For the first time in the history of this nation we have a multi-national man to occupy the Oval Office and yet he still is only half African.

The vast majority of our Senators are white as well as those who hold the title of CEO for Fortune 500 companies. Our schools remain segregated as well as our money, but as a member of the minority I can say that we have dealt with this for decades.

Because our color landscape is changing there is enough fear to go around for everybody.

We can either take the strait jacket and head to the local mental institution or we can adapt to the times. America has always claimed to be a huge melting pot. Well now we get to see just how much we are willing to let it melt.