Your Morning Upper: Confront Racism

TNG Founder Ben submitted this post.

Mornings suck. So every morning, TNG brings you a fun video to help ease the pain.

In a blunt assessment of race relations in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder has called the American people "essentially a nation of cowards" in failing to openly discuss the issue of race. He went on to say that "It's a question of being honest with ourselves and about racial issues that divide us... It's not easy to talk about it. We have to have the guts to be honest with each other, accept criticism, accept new proposals."

One of my favorite films is the movie "Blaze," starring Paul Newman as eccentric Louisiana Governor Earl Long (a personal hero of mine who openly dated famous New Orleans stripper Blaze Starr). Holder's comments reminded me of the historical scene above, where Earl yells "The war was over 100 years ago," as he is escorted out of the chamber after taking on the racist Louisiana legislature. After many cat and mouse games with the legislature over the issue of race, the outnumbered governor finally calls the government out on its averse racism in spite of the damage he knows it will do to his political career. The war may indeed be over, but if we're going to live together and solve our common problems, we need to find the courage (like Earl) for more direct conversation about race issues, regardless of the consequences.

Black history month is as good a time as any to remind ourselves to take a hard look at our attitudes regardless of our race, and to seek out direct interracial experiences that are positive and personal so that we might replace feelings of fear and anxiety with those of empathy, connection, and respect for members of other groups. Particularly considering this Mardi Gras season, it's what Earl would have wanted.