Dr. Manis teaches at one of the colleges Macon, GA and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon Telegraph.Dr. Manis
When Are WE Going to Get Over It? For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color? Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk." Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood. We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster. But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that schoolchildren from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama." Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can -once and for all- get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites? How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations? I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting th at blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do? How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight? Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan: First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people. Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome." Andrew Manis is author of Macon Black and White and serves on the steering committee of Macon's Center for Racial understanding. It takes a Village to protect our President!!!

Only in a university do they teach this stuff.

It's only when you get into the real world that you realize these things are not issues, except in people's minds.

It's quite noticeable that you didn't even read the article.


Thanks for posting this sir.

Thank you for saying what I was thinking H.K54
and you're very welcome.

Thank you for posting this.

It's amazing that to this day people don't realize that color only is skin deep, and that what counts is inside.
The man writing this article is one of very few to really see it, and to say it out loud. Kudos.

Yes, how long will it take.

We do need to protect this President.

There is alot of truth in the OP.

Think u got it wrong. ANY president has been threatned for a kill. AND there isn't as much racism as u think, becasue it is an issue O brought up first ("did I forget to mention I am black?" When McC stayed away from it ALWAYS.

Now here u bring up the fact slaves built the W/H and such, and whites. YOU are promoting the division, period.

Forget who built what, who is what skin color, and things will be far better than to keep throwing them up in people's faces. BB

Smart Lady

I believe that it needs to be discussed. It should never be swept under the carpet.

I don't know which YOU, your referring to. He didn't write the article.

I don't know that such an article does any good.
It offers nothing to open the eyes of those who refuse to see, nor does it hold any valuable words of persuasion. I'm not even sure it offers much food for thought; just someone's opinion.

Opinion is subjective, at best at worst it leads only to opposing opinions and argument.

I would think an educator would place more value in the words being written for public view. Just my opinion.

If it weren't for what went on in peoples minds we'd all be living in caves.

Why, does it seem, that exploring ideas is dismissed by some?

What's that that's said about an unexplored life?