Where Headaches Come From ...

One of my best friends called me today, and tried explaining why she didn't call me back the night before.

She said she had a pounding headache derived from the ignorance of a conversation with co-workers from the day before. She, an upwardly mobile, well-spoken black female, sat quietly while a room full of white counterparts discussed one of the hot topics of the day: what Sen. Joe Biden, who announced his candidacy for the presidency, said about Barack Obama (click here to read the story).

In short, this is what he said about Obama: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

A seven-year-old who sat through his/her first day of class during black history month today probably now knows about Thurgood Marshall or Fredrick Douglass or at least Martin Luther King, and that they were in some way mainstream, bright, clean and so forth.

But somehow this wasn't so obvious to Senator Biden. And somehow, most of my friend's colleagues couldn't quite grasp what was wrong with what Biden said. They, in fact, thought it made good sense.

My friend said she sat there for a second in shock of what she was witnessing until her boss, who found the rest of the room to have temporarily have gone insane as well, asked her what she thought.

She then addressed the room, and why it was a derogatory and racially insensitive statement.

Of course, her answers silenced the room, and made everyone in it have to re-think all of the veiled ignorance they had just spewed out. Until they heard a black person say it, they couldn't understand what it felt like to be the black person who had heard over and over again, "You speak so well," knowing full well they meant to add "for an African-American." Even then, they probably still couldn't quite understand.

It's one thing for a senator, who represents a constituency of our American people, to say such things. But its another for a sect of that population to believe that there's nothing wrong with what was said. It's a scary thing to realize so many around us are so ignorant.

That's what bothers me more, especially when there are, past and present, so many bright blacks to blaze trails in an array of arenas. Need immediate proof: just think about the names listed above or think about Sunday's Super Bowl (aka the BlackBowl), which will be coached by two black men for the first time ever.

This evidences that race is still a major problem in our society, and as long as it is, it will be a recurring headache for our people. I've got one now just from thinking about this.