Brief excerpt from, "Never Forget Who You are: Conversations About Racism and Identity Development," by Rodney L. Hurst Sr, and Dr. Rudy F. Jamison Jr.

​"There is no respectful way to make Whites comfortable about how Blacks are treated by them, nor will I try. Telling the truth about Racism is always central in conversations about Race.

Today we are immersed in full-blown Conversations about Racism due in large part to a former White American Racist president. Conversations about Race and Racism are requisite today, no matter how uncomfortable and painful some feel about those conversations. Racist actions, directed at those who look like me, are more uncomfortable and painful, than your hurt feelings because of words in a conversation, and being called out, because of your White Racist Words.

Respecting Blacks as human beings is the issue. Pathological hatred against my Black skin and my parent’s Black skin and their parent’s Black skin is the issue and has been the issue since the founding of this country. Racism is not something just hovering around which we can ignore as if it did not exist. Racism is the “substance” that permeates the very thought process and the existence of this country, daily; and Racism exists, born out of slavery, based on the color of one’s skin. Feigning ignorance is not an excuse for Racism. Racism is America's Original Sin.

Young Blacks today are lulled into thinking skin color has no place in the conversation about quality and succeeding and getting into college and remaining in college and “acceptance” in extracurricular social, professional, educational and civic activities. The Post-Racial Thing. But as we have seen through events in the news, White American Racism and its “sidekick” White Privilege, still mightily exists.

Whites and Blacks who deny the existence of Racism and White Privilege, do not want to admit the reality of how Black skin has been stigmatized in this country. The reactive response, “I do not see color” is specious and disingenuous on its face. When Dr. Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” he knew that White America could never get passed the Black skin to judge the content of a Black person’s character. After all, Racism is taught.

America is where it is today because White America lacks courage, White America is hypocritical, White America is full of hatred, and White America looks with abhorrence at those whom White America calls “others.” Indigenous Native Americans never called Whites others, even as White Americans stole their land.

To this day, we still deal with the intransigence and the obstinacy of an America who refuses to apologize for the American Holocaust called Slavery, who refuses to discuss the paying of reparations-repaying money owed-to the millions whose Black hue of skin “made” American capitalism, and whose blood, sweat, tears, and death established American capitalism, and built Wall Street.

Just as America denies the ravages of Slavery and refuses to admit to its creation, America also refuses to admit to the scourge of White American Racism, and often challenges Blacks to “prove” Racism, when Blacks rightfully charge America’s perpetually embedded Racism. The implication is, if one cannot produce irrefutable evidence of clear, blatant, and intentional bias, then Racism must be banned as a possibility. But this is both silly as an intellectual claim and dangerous as a policy standard.
In a nation with the racial history of the United States, the idea that there is no Racism as a presumption and that racial bias must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, is blatantly and intellectually ridiculous.

America elected donald trump, a president, who by any description of humaneness, and by any accepted standard of integrity, is simply a Racist in presidential clothing. If there is a question if donald trump is a Racist, there are some determinants you can use:
Does he say and do Racist things?
Does he slur Black athletes and Black celebrities who openly oppose his Racism?
Does he insult the countries of birth of both Black and Brown people?
Does he continually attack his predecessor in the White House who happens to be Black?
Does he refuse to call out White Nationalists and White Racists?
Does he give cover and comfort to Racists with a claim "there are good people" on the side of Racists and White Nationalists?
Does he single out Black members of Congress to spew his Racist vitriol?"
Easy answers to easy questions.

Don’t Judge Me...You Don’t Know Me That Well.

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