05 June 2010

The "White Washing" of America



A friend alerted me to this article this morning through FaceBook, so I went to the source.   It seems that some of the "good people" of Prescott, AZ not only don't want to have to deal with non-lily-white people, they don't even want to see paintings of  brown skinned children.

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Altered mural fuels racial debate in Prescott

A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school.
The project's leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children's ethnicity. But the school's principal says the request was only to fix shading and had nothing to do with political pressure.


Altered mural fuels racial debate in Prescott


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It seems that seeing a "person of color" in the heretofore "White" House is too much for many white folks.  If our presidency had looked more like the nation, we should have had 5 African-American presidents by now (12.5% of the population), 7 Latino presidents (15.4%) and 1 Asian (4.4%) .  And this is only as a percentage of  presidents, not of total presidential terms.  The hegemony of the white, protestant male is waning.  (If the Senate confirms Elena Kagen, there will be no protestants on the Supreme Court, only Roman Catholics and Jews.)

I fear that these "god-fearing", gun-toting, gay-hating white folks won't go down without a fight.  Egged on by the Becks, Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reilleys, Palins and Bachmans.  The extreme right-wing is taking over the Republican Party while its leaders are complicit or acquiesce out of fear of beint "tea-bagged".  While members of the Democratic Party are speaking out, they are not always doing it with adequate (IMHO) force, again, due to fear of losing seats: local, state or federal.  To quote Edmund Burke:  "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing."

Remember, Hitler came to power in Gemany without ever having won a parliamentary majority (44%) in March of 1933, the last "free" elections.  I'm just sayin'.

1 comment:

Counterlight said...

There seem to be few things in this world as divisive as melanin.