by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: July 07, 2010

Whenever an American of color hears the words "Liberty and justice for all." or "All men are created equal", there has to be an automatic wince, then snort of derision, even during the most uplifting and patriotic moments. Deep in the mind of every American of color lives the memory or experience of some form of oppression that is based on skin color and skin color alone.

All of the other excuses do not matter. It is about skin color and hair quality, or whether one parent or another is White.

Throughout history, oppressors and racists have categorized people by their skin color. Those closest to European in appearance were put at the higher levels of society, with decreasing opportunities and worse treatment as the skin color deepened.

In the deep south of the slavery era, life revolved around this poem "If you're yellow, good fellow; if you're brown stick around; if you're black get back".  It is depressing that the same attitude persists today. Americans who have the blackest skin tones are automatically assumed to be bad, criminal, dumb, crooked, and of the worst of qualities, even by small children. When tested on a recent CNN special about race, White children repeatedly pointed to the darkest faces when asked which person had a negative quality. They repeatedly pointed to the Whitest faces when asked which person had the positive quality. Their parents professed to be shocked and unaware that their children had these attitudes.

Conversely, the whiter, the righter. For centuries, we have heard women of color who come from various economic and social levels who want to have "blond haired-blue eyed kids" and who seek out white men to lighten up or to Europeanize their offspring. The controversy over very black men who seek only blond haired, white women continues, while their mates aggressively seek some sort of special standing for their mixed race children.

It does not matter that many of the so called "mixed race" children are darker or have more African ancestry than those who are considered to be "all black". It is something about having the White parent that is supposed to give these children some special standing, apart and superior to others who share their racial makeup.

Attempts to deny that President Obama has any race at all, except when racists want him to fail are indicative that racism and tribalism is deeply embedded in the human biological imperative and is here to stay as long as humans are alive. In other words, if humans were all of one color, there would be another way to classify them and to assign lesser or greater roles and opportunities in life.

America, however, is the only country in the world that was founded, built upon, and which still thrives upon the worst and most overt of racism. Such a powerful foundation as racism will never be torn down. Until racism is confined to the invisible corner where it belongs, it is racism that will aid in the downfall of a once powerful and great country.

Learn more about this author, Elizabeth M Young.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.