Hope Still Trumps Pettiness!
Today’s fading dinosaurs: the red-meat, “whites Only” crowd.

The White people in this land are being spoken of in two ways, one the protectors of all that is good and white, and in a coded way that defines their red-necked roots.

It's no secret that once you get out of the City of Brotherly Love (another misnomer because they would rather mug you than love you in Philly), the fact is that you are knee deep in “Red-Neckedness.” In fact, it is probably the most red necked place anywhere outside of the teeming South where at least you know where you stand.

Most would rather stand with Hillary knee deep in their petty bigotry and unabashed hatreds than admit that the world is changing and there is no place for “haters.”

Now, I can't say this about Pittsburgh since there are some good liberal institutions there but Pennsylvania is notorious for its resemblance to Alabama or Mississippi.

Right now, the people outside Philly and Pittsburgh believe in guilt through association. They believe that Obama's belief system has been formed by the good reverend and they are picking apart every one of his words to prove that fact.

The fact that his talk about his grandmother and called her a "typical" white person has ticked off more red meat conservatives than you can possibly imagine. Even my cleaning gal, who doesn't talk politics, was jumping up and down about it last week. And I hear talk about the fact that he should have tossed him aside a dozen years ago. To make matters worse, these harsh unforgiving critics think that his wife has a bad attitude. Considering the fact that she has had the best of educations and lived in a place where she could get an education, she is viewed by this crowd as an "ingrate" and somebody who doesn't deserve the good life and high salary that she gets.

And, yes, I detect envy.

What gives her the right to talk about not loving America before?

And this leads to all kind of racist overtones.

Well, the question is why shouldn’t she express her disappointment in the lack of progress for blacks over so many years? If it came from a white man, nobody would give it a thought.

The fact of the matter that those of us who found Obama's message of "hope" and new beginnings so inspiring, find that we have been dragged into the muck by a society that has not advanced very far since Integration.

With that is the feeling that it wouldn't take much to don the sheets again!

This is a sad commentary as we consider Martin Luther King's last days, his ringing words and the failures of most of society to advance from those days.

For most blacks who inhabit urban areas, their lives are gritty and to be taken one day at a time.
Most of them feel the grip of unemployment and lowered expectations in a world that should have been long beyond that.

The fact that it hasn't taken place is more an indictment of us than them.

And that glimmer of hope has morphed into our cognizance that we are really only back at the beginning.

To be sure some blacks have advanced the cause but it is embarrassing that the red neck, red meat conservatives in this country still cannot sit at the same table with a black or be generous of spirit.

Of course, all this is about to change not because we are getting better; but because the young people do not see color.

And that, in the end, will be the best thing that's ever happened to race relations.

Les Aaron