Some thoughts about race

I was sitting at work trying to be at peace with the nation's choice of president and I came up with some interesting thoughts about race. It is something that our nation will always have to deal with but this particular election brings into the clear light of day, I think for the first time.

I never had any intention of voting against Obama because his skin was darker than mine. It really never entered my mind. And yet many black Americans did vote for Obama because he is a black man. One commentator said that the number of whites that voted against Obama because of color offsets the number of black people that supported him for the same reasons. I find this logic spurious at best.

Colin Powell is a prime example of a black man that voted for Obama simply because he is the same color. Powell had been a long time Republican—albeit a moderate one. Like John McCain he had served in Vietnam and he was well aware of the the Arizona senator's qualifications for the presidency. Despite his assertions to the contrary he endorsed Obama for no other reason than his race.

I don't have a problem with black people supporting Barack because he's black. They should be proud of the accomplishment of the first term senator from Illinois, the “Great Emancipator”, Abraham Lincoln's state. What I don't like is when a person tells a bald-faced lie about their reasons for making this very important decision.

It brings up a question that I feel has to be asked: why is it that people think they have to lie about it? If this were forty years ago I could understand the reticence of black Americans to state their reasons for voting based on race. Of course forty years ago a black man would never had made it. The point is that times have changed. And Colin Powell is one of the reasons that they have changed so positively. He served with distinction and became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under George H. W. Bush. He led the successful campaign against Saddam Husein in the first Gulf War. He was the first black Secretary of State. He has no reason to be ashamed about the fact that he voted for Obama simply because he is also black. Powell has paid his dues.

One of the reasons may simply be that he feels that he was slighted by the current Bush administration because of his reticence to use military force against Iraq. He made the case to the world at the UN for war and the evidence was faulty. It made him look bad. He also may feel that he is partially to blame for the deaths of over 4,000 men and women of the American armed forces. I guess I feel that maybe I am too since I supported the war. But the fact remains that we were operating on the intelligence that we had at the time. And though I'm just a lowly civilian I supported the war because I thought it was the right thing to do. I made some mean statements about the people who were against the war and I am sorry. However, neither Colin Powell nor anyone else that supported the war should blame ourselves for that tragedy since we used the same info to come to our conclusions. So if a feeling of responsibility for what happened is one of the reasons that he lied about his reasons for voting for Obama, it is misplaced. A lot of good people were duped.

I don't think that Colin Powell is afraid of what people think about him. I don't think that that is why he lied about his reasons. But if that's not the reason then the only remain reason for lying is the worst reason. He was actively trying to mislead the American people. Remember he didn't have to publicly support Obama. He could have simply done what the rest of America did on November 5^th; he could have silently voted. But he went out of his way to make a statement of his support on all of the Sunday chit-chat shows. And while doing so he lied about his reasons.

I think that I have lost a little respect for Mr. Powell.