Just Couldn't Let It Go...

First, read this article.

Done? Good. Now I need to have my, relatively brief, say.

Where is the pride, people? When did we - people of non- or partial-white descent - decide that it was good to rejoice, not just in mediocrity, but in abject failure at life? When did emotional, financial, and educational success become the exclusive province of white people and racial "sellouts"?

It's this kind of attitude that perpetuates a kind of social slavery that keeps bad people from becoming better, and good people from reaching and rejoicing in their potential. It's an attitude I've seen A LOT in my life, and I can't emphasize that "a lot" enough, really. This attitude of self-definition based on the dual combination of race and failure is possibly one of the most dangerous and crippling psychological phenomena I've ever seen. And the sick part is that it's not only tolerated by some, and outright ignored by others, but encouraged by just as many. And these three attitudes are found in both white and Black communities, not to mention those of us who straddle that line, not wanting to sell out either side of our heritage by being forced to pick sides.

Not to mention, I don't see this going the other way - at least not to any degree worth comparing. White people aren't denied their membership as card-carrying White People because they live in housing projects, flunk out of school, or even marry outside of their race. Yet when a Black man marries a white woman (or vice versa) suddenly that person is an ambitious sellout who is ashamed of their race and refuses to be satisfied by members of the opposite sex from their same ethnic background.

And, as a purely tangential point, it may be convenient to call Mr. Obama our first Black president, but if we're being fair and accurate, he's our first bi-racial president. Bi-racial, mixed, however you want to put it, but let's stop the oversimplification of thought that dictates that once a person has a shred of non-white lineage, they cease to be white at all. Just my own opinion, of course.