Black Mosaic: Essays for Post-Racial America

By Richard Kenyada

In Black Mosaic: Essays for Post-Racial America, Richard Kenyada assesses the progress we've made in our quest to find the key element that unites us as Americans and, further, as human beings. The term "post racial"popped up after the first Obama victory, but the mood of the country has not reflected that kind of hope. In many ways, Americans seem to be drawing their own lines in the sand. But it's no longer the historic us-against-them of the Cold War era. The lines are being drawn between Americans - races, classes, genders, and sexual orientation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496912763

Richard Kenyada

Richard Kenyada is a Vietnam War veteran, who recently retired after a 45-year career in engineering. He was also a community activist in the area of computer literacy (1998-2007) and through his non-profit organization, Mr. Kenyada’s Neighborhood, he created an award-winning program PC’s to the People, which provided free computers to disadvantaged children, and free computer training to seniors. But it was as an author that he found a new audience. One of the essays from Kenyada’s first book, essays & open wounds while waiting for The APOLOGY, has become reference material for college courses and other authors. Flesh Tone Bandages & Other White Privileges was required reading for two courses at the University of Utah - Cross Cultural Psychology & the Ethnic Studies course of the Pacific Islander American Experience. Interracial... Record Buying, another piece, is referenced in a new book about black music, Soul Covers by Michael Awkward. Love, Lena Horne, is an essay dedicated to Kenyada's father, Buddy, and his lifelong cherished memory of a dance he shared with Lena Horne. This charming anecdote is included in a 2004 book about the diva's life titled, Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne by James Gavin. Of course, the Kenyada essay titled, The APOLOGY, which was adapted as the finale for the stage production Maafa Suite in 1997, and toured the county through 2004, achieved the greatest success. Kenyada followed his literary maiden voyage with Reflections in the Dark Room: The Black Essays, which included Inauguration Ball 2009, a celebration of the Barack Obama victory he wrote one week before the 2008 presidential election. The essay went viral on the Internet, and was recited at various Obama 2009 Inaugural gatherings, including a recital by Marian Wright Edelman at Birmingham’s historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Richard Kenyada lives in metro Atlanta with his wife of 22 years, Patricia.

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© 2014 Richard Kenyada. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 5/13/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-1277-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-1276-3 (e)

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Contents

The Other Prologue

Now Run Tell That!

George Zimmerman: The New Wannabe Sheriff in Town

Old Wounds, New Cities

Georgia on My Landmines

The Gun, The Madman & The Voices

Meet The Negroes

Genocide Disguised as The Black Southern Diet

Rotten Apple for the Teachers: The Atlanta Public School Cheating Scandal

Integration

Racial Tolerance

Education

My People

TBG – Token Black Guy

Feed, Clothe, House, Educate & Supervise

On Picking the Wrong White Person

V.A. Hospitals: A Veteran’s Final Battleground

No, Rodney King, We Can’t Get Along

Every Black Man Needs an Alibi

Fear of a Black Attitude

The Dream + 50 Years

On Pushing the Black Self-Destruct Button

The N-Word Revisited

Locked Down & Educated

American Flag

Taking Ownership of America

August 20, 2013: Hug Your Child Today

Boston Beings

Remembering Inauguration Ball 2009

OurStory

TEA-publicans, Dinosaurs and Other Dead Things

Three Months Until Dawn

Herman Cain Wasn’t Able

Government Shutdown – Castrated Republicans, Pants Down

Terrorists – Torture, Trials and Tribulations

Billy Bob Bubba & His Guns

Bubblin’ Crude: Looking Back at the BP Oil Spill

The Cost of War

Short Takes

Theoretical BS

Apple of My i

New Year, Same Old Me

Blues for Mother Mary

Goodnight Iraq

Of Love & Friendship

Anti-Social Networking

20-Something (For Tricia)

Man & Woman – A Love Story

Love is Never Ordinary

Pall-Bearing For Yesterday

I Remember Jackie

Don Cornelius

Clarence Clouden

Fannie Lou Hamer: Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired

Essay for My Father

1997 Memo

The Ghetto at 44

Turn Off The Lights: Celebrating the Life of Teddy P

Hope in Black & White

The Race Card

Better Days Ahead

Getting Past Post-Racial

Acknowledgement

About the Author

For my friend, Martin Tribble, and everyone who remembers Ajax Park

The Other PROLOGUE

I had written a prologue for this book that was so positive and appreciative of the way in which Americans finally came together as one nation under God after the election of Barack Obama. It followed and documented the racial progress we have seen in every corner of the nation. It was about how we set aside our differences after centuries of racial strife and learned, against all odds, how to live together as Americans. When President Barack Obama took his oath on January 20, 2009, it was a sorely needed breath of fresh air. Tears of happiness and fulfillment were shed. We had elected an African American and we thought everything would fall in line in our march towards Change. People all over the world celebrated America again. Finally, we had a president who would safeguard our freedoms as a nation, honor our commitments around the world, and squeeze the term, for the people back into our creed as a nation. Our country would be seen once again as a champion of freedom instead of the oppressive invader of lesser nations.

I was so proud of us, and I wanted everyone to feel that same pride. So I printed it out, placed it on the coffee table, and turned on the TV to see the evening news. When I returned, the Prologue was gone. There were some small shreds of it on the floor, but it was gone. I can only surmise that post-racial America ate my prologue. I’m so disappointed. After all, Barack Obama is well into his second term as President of the United States. He first soundly defeated John McCain and then Mitt Romney, and his victories have been wildly celebrated all over the world, not just in Harlem and DC, the Chocolate City.

And then it began. In the midst of the celebratory atmosphere of the first inauguration, the Republicans seemed poised to dismantle every Obama effort to move toward consensus. Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh announced that he hoped Obama failed, and the Republicans fell in lockstep behind him. There was no cease-fire usually accorded an incoming president. There was no respect for the Office of President. It was an ongoing beat down of every concept, every policy brought forth by the new President. The Birthers, a group that even challenged Barack Obama’s citizenship, continued to attack him. The constant barrage of anti-Obama nonsense seemed to polarize the nation. Black people were just pissed off, particularly the segment of African Americans that thought Obama’s election meant the nation had passes into post-racial America. No surprise there. They were the first to declare The Struggle over. They were the first ones at the Happy Hour gatherings to embrace their white friends in a premature assessment of all things racial. They were just as ready to declare victory, as G.W. Bush was to declare Mission Accomplished. And, bless their hearts, they were just as wrong.

Even though we won the election, the Rodney-King-wing of the Democratic Party sought to get along with The Losers and find some compromise. The people voted for Change, not Compromise. The consensus-seeking President Obama ran into a stonewall at every turn. He kept trying to gain consensus with a group that was hell bent on not only seeing him fail, but playing a vital role in that failure.

The attack on Obama was a new kind of racism. The Republicans said it was about policy, but it was really racism wrapped in pretty red-white-and-blue ribbons. This was the Ronald Reagan racism – drenched in respectability and sophistication. It was racism with a chuckle, and we weren’t prepared for it. History prepared us for dogs and fire hoses, hangman’s nooses and vigilantes in white sheets riding in pickup trucks. There was no warning for an articulate, courteous goon, wearing Brooks Brothers on the floor of the U.S. Congress. The look of the racist has changed. They have learned from past mistakes, but we have not. They seek an invite, but not for the purpose of finding common ground. Their hope is to find a better angle with which to shoot us down. The difference is that in the old days they practiced their racist rants on rural roads or under the cover or darkness and altered bed linen. There were no burning crosses on the floor of the Congress, but Republican legislators made it known where they stood.

With the election of Obama we were supposed to have entered an era of post racial, but everything happening - or not happening - today is based on the race of our president. We are more polarized today than ever before. The difference is that the polarization is even more potent now because black people are more empowered; it’s a fair fight now. However, the intensity has been turned up a notch, because whites feel more threatened with their own extinction as rulers of the little people. The loss of political power coupled with diminished demographics has moved many of them into desperation mode. That’s fine with me. Bring it on! According to the commercials there is only one black dude to every 5 white dudes in a bar. While they are drinking, we’ll be organizing.

So time’s up! You can officially stop waiting for America to get past race. It ain’t ever gonna happen. Besides, how can we expect white Americans to do it when we can’t? In fact, white folks can now use their white sheets for bed linen, because black people do the black hatred thing more thoroughly than white people ever could. And it doesn’t matter that a black man sits behind the big desk in the Oval Room. Nothing changes for us. Nothing changes until we decide to change it.

We have become so expert at killing each other that white people only seem to get in the way. Those who hate black people just need to step aside for a moment and allow us to kill ourselves. White people are standing in line, all right, but not to murder us. They’re in line to receive their law degrees so they can defend black folks guilty of killing other blacks. In other words, they don’t need to do the deed; they just need to step aside and defend those who do. We now have an industry in this country that is, in essence, a black people killing machine. Who says we don’t produce anything? We produce self-destruction, and we do it so efficiently that no other group comes close. We do it without motive, and we do it with impunity.

As I searched for more scraps of my prologue and remnants of ‘post-racial America, an older black woman tugged on my sleeve. Pardon me, Sir, she said, if you are looking for Post-Racial America, you may have taken a wrong turn about a hundred miles back, at the White Aryan Nation sign. Or maybe it happened at the forked road near Billy Bob’s sold-out Glock gun shop. You may have gotten lost in the fog of Tea Party farts during one of the Mitt Romney ‘fifty-three-percent’ rallies. But it really doesn’t matter where you were misdirected or misled, the fact is that the shelf life of post-racial America was, at best, two months long – the time it took to elect, then inaugurate, a new president."

Now Run Tell That!

George Zimmerman: The New Wannabe Sheriff in Town

An interesting thing happened on the journey along our nation’s bumpy road to post-racial America: George Zimmerman. On the night of February 26, 2012, Zimmerman, a 5'-8, 200-lb police officer wannabe cleverly disguised as a neighborhood watch leader, spotted Trayvon Martin walking home from a corner store. The kid – he was just 3 weeks past his 17th birthday - was armed" with a bag of Skittles and a soda. Zimmerman, armed with a handgun and ready for action, decided to approach the anything but menacing youth. He confronted young Trayvon, who probably had a bag of candy in one hand, a soda in the other, and a mouthful of Skittles. A scuffle ensued at the end of which Trayvon Martin lost his life.

Seventeen months later, Zimmerman stood trial charged with second-degree murder and a lessor charge of manslaughter. Zimmerman claimed that he shot the teen in self-defense. When a Florida jury found Zimmerman innocent there was an immediate groundswell of unrest and protest. There were scheduled marches, rallies and prayer rituals across the country. Scholarships were named for Trayvon Martin, and so were newborn babies. We were desperate to take something positive from the unspeakable tragedy.

Plans were made to further charge Zimmerman in a federal case for civil rights violations. Like many, I was infuriated by the comments of the first juror to voice her opinion after the verdict. She believes that Trayvon Martin was somehow partially to blame for the incident that led to his death. What? Even President Barack Obama chimed in with comments about racial profiling and the prejudice he had felt early on in his own life. But we have all been there, and felt the fear coming from others in our presence. The uncomfortable moment in the elevator, or merely walking down the sidewalk when a lone white woman clutches her purse a little closer as she passes. Sometimes you almost want to smile to put them at ease.

So being profiled is nothing new for adult black men. We know the deal. But bringing our children into the equation changes everything. We have to do more than stand our ground.

Old Wounds, New Cities

In case you’ve ever wondered about the changing strategies being conceived in this modern era of racial polarization, you need look no further than Atlanta, capital city of The New South. It is a two-pronged strategy than involves first removing the poor, ethnic core of the urban center, demolishing their homes, and rebuilding chic new dwellings with price tags way beyond the income of regular folk. They call it gentrification, which has more syllables than segregation, but ultimately arrives at the same destination – urban renewal by eradication of black folks. Those of us, who had a problem with integration for destroying our communities, should be doing back flips over gentrification, which keeps us assembled and mobile as we are systematically removed from our communities… together.

The most recent addition to the strategy is currently spreading through the suburbs. Whites who moved to the suburbs of major cities are now making moves on the power structure. After all, what good is an all-white neighborhood, if you have lost the political power to determine your own destiny? Elected blacks are calling the shots in Atlanta and, as the shade of the electorate becomes increasingly black and brown, something had to be done. Enter the let’s-make-our-own-city movement, where whites take the big bucks earned in the inner city back out to the suburbs where they live, to build better roads, better schools, and better shopping. They then proceed to elect their own officials, appoint their own police, and create their own tax structure to distribute their wealth to, well, themselves. In Atlanta we have seen this strategy played out with the emergence of the City of Sandy Springs, the City of Dunwoody, the City of Johns Creek and, most recently, the City of Brookwood.

These are The New Cities and, until the first colonization of the Moon, white folks will simply have to make do.

Georgia on My Landmines

I realize that United States has a black man sitting in the Oval Room, and African Americans have made tremendous strides forward. But I’m afraid we have yet to arrive at post-racial America, particularly in the South where historical deep pockets of racism continue to be exposed on the under belly of this country. In the State of Georgia, for example, the racial divide permeates every aspect of life. No surprise, since they just got around to removing every trace of the Confederate Flag from their state flag in 2003. You can drive through the streets of some Atlanta suburbs and still to this day find black jockey statues adorning lawns.

Racism and bigotry are alive and well in Georgia. Ironically, if you call a white Georgian a bigot, he will be upset. They don’t like to be called a bigot. They don’t mind being one; they just don’t like being called one. Like Georgia restaurateur Paula Dean, they have no problem using the N-word. They just have a problem owning up to the