Austin Kaluba, in a piece at the Zambia Daily Mail, turns a critical eye on Barack Obama's handling of racism in America and finds the first U.S. black president's silence worrisome. Obama, he says, has won so many battles, "apart from the race war that defines America."
No one can deny that he is among the best orators of all time. He has looks, charisma [and] diplomacy. But why has Barack Hussein Obama been so silent on racism in America?
The million dollar question has seen two great Black men in the 20th century shot down; Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. One preached achieving equality through peaceful means while the other advocated violence as the only way to end racism. Both were killed violently.
H.Rap Brown ( Jamil Abullah Al-Amin), the one-time Black Panther Minister of Justice, once said 'violence is as American as cherry pie.'
Obama has already scored a first by becoming the first black man to enter White House. But his almost total silence on racism is worrying in a country whose history is somehow linked to race.
I am not talking about any other European countries, which have their own toned down brands of racism. I am talking about America; the land that was stolen from Red Indians, where violence and racism are inexorably entwined.
I am talking of America, where racism at one time was legal, complete with lynchings of blacks, including those who had served in the Army defending the barbaric nation. I feel an intelligent man of Obama's calibre should at least say something about people of different races living in harmony.
This is a country which boasts of being Christian despite at one time promoting myths that blacks were descendants of Ham, who had been cursed and predestined to be a slave.
White Americans at one time believed that it was pointless to convert blacks to Christianity since the darkies have no soul! It took one Richard Allen, a bold slave, to form the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) for blacks to access the Gospel.
Not that I am anti-American but its white racists seem to have racism in their DNA. The country has been too affluent and efficient using dishonesty that it is almost impossible to argue persuasively for honesty. It seems Mr Obama has won so many battles apart from the race war that defines America.
Read Austin Kaluba's entire piece at the Zambia Daily Mail.
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