Software Development

The first rule is that any white (or other majority and minority for that matter) who talks about race or minorities is that you will suffer the consequences. You will only lose. This will affect your reputation and your character. Yes, the discussion will continue. But it will be done by those who do work in that area or with close friends outside the public eye. It's not even a question of breaking even and forget completely about winning an argument. Once you group people together, you will invariably attribute something that doesn't apply to everyone in that group. It's a lose/lose situation. And just to show that we all know this rule, CNN had almost exclusively black people on their network after the speech. CNN knows this rule. That's why I'm not talking about race, but about hate.

The second rule of spewing out hate is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I was younger, teachers, parents, friends and everyone drilled into us to NEVER EVER use hate or the minority card EVER. It was condemned as the worst thing anyone could do. This drilling continued even as I graduated from high school. The reason this is so important is that if you are negative toward a group, they will get ticked off. And then the accuser can just go "See, I told you so." And things spiral out of control.

The third rule of hate is that it hurts everyone including the accuser. If you tick off a certain part of the population, they will be less likely to interact with you once you do need to interact with them.

For me, it's clear that Obama was not given the same memo. True that I have no idea what he grew up with or in what conditions. But he is applying for the most powerful post on the planet. He can't be that bad off. And his defence of his pastor is reprehensible. Hate is NOT defensible. America must understand the fact that Rezko, Farrakhan, Wright and Otis Moss III are all people who agree with and spew hate of the most vile things I haven't heard since my childhood (and some of which I've never heard before). These people stand behind what they say. None of them have apologized and Obama has and still does call them all friends. Those are Obama's words. Everyone must come to terms with the fact that these people will continue to shape and influence who Obama is as a person and will continue to do so for years to come.

Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

Someone needs to tell Obama that this is reprehensible. You do NOT defend hate. You do NOT make excuses for it. It doesn't matter how much good he has done. You do NOT defend it unless the man has changed his ways.

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

This is a classic textbook example of what not to do. If there's anything that has been said to me and others over and over and over where I grew up is that you do not do this. This is a classic pitfall. The good never negates the bad. NEVER. Obama clearly didn't get the memo.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.

Why not? Why is Wright equivalent to the black community? Obama doesn't say. Obama CHOSE this man as his pastor. Obama can walk away as others have done all over the world when their pastor has said something reprehensible.

I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

So he equates his grandmother, who can no longer defend herself because she is deceased, (correction: I read that she is indeed alive) with what Wright has said. The stuff that comes out of Obama's mouth is ridiculous. There is no excuse. And this is a common pattern with Obama and those who harbour hate. He'll defend anything as long as he can point to something else that he considers being just as bad or worse. Sorry Obama, that's not how you move forward. That's how you stay stuck in the politics of hate.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Hate has no place in America or anywhere else. And to say that hate is part of you is despicable.

But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Fine, just as long as you don't use this to defend hate.

Look, my ancestors were slaves too. I still have some documents about an uncle on my mother's father's side several generations back that lost everything he had. He hid and was able to impersonate an Englishman in order to keep one boat from his prior fishing business in order to keep feeding his grandparents with whom he lived as well as his friends. If he were discovered, he would have been hung along with his entire family and anyone who helped him. He was "lucky". Others, not so much.

But I'm not black. Neither were my ancestors. Some are still upset about what happened back then. But those feelings can only be pointed to the past. No one alive today is responsible for it or suffers from slavery. Could a point be made that my current situation or those of Acadians or Cajuns alike are the product of the Deportation? Of course. But there's no one around left to blame. Yet, there are still many Acadians that still harbour hatred.

And I'm not comparing my situation to anyone else's other than pointing out that African Americans aren't the only ones who suffered from slavery. I'm only speaking about hate here. Each has his or her own story to tell. But the main point is how the people responsible aren't around anymore.

But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

It's not anger. It's hate. Get it right. This is the problem, Obama. You just don't get it. Hate is the problem. Unless you beat hate, you can't move ahead. You MUST condemn it. You MUST make it go away. If there are problems, then address those. But leave hate out of it.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favour the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is a man who just doesn't get it. Anger isn't the problem. It's hate. And he's defending it. Over and over and over, he defends it. Yes, all of what he says about the disparities may be true. But leave HATE out of it. The above quote is a classic example of rule 2 and 3.

One must understand that pointing out current suffering is NEVER a reason to defend hate toward an entire group. NEVER. There is no argument that works here because if you make excuses for hate, then the ones perpetrating the injustices will also make excuses for their actions and nothing will get solved.

Please realise that I have ZERO intention of speaking about race in this article and hope I didn't do so. I only intended to talk about hate and hate only. I cannot talk for others. Not even those that have a similar past as mine. I can only tell my own story.