Scared Like Me...

Yesterday an otherwise liberal friend confided that he feared an Obama Presidential win might “unleash Black rage.”

Since then I’ve examined this issue from a personal feelings standpoint: Maybe this is one of those racial secrets that simmer just below the tender skin between our collective subconscious and the voting booth. Do millions of Americans fear retribution from Blacks?

Let’s take a leap… If I were black instead of a middle-aged white woman… no, let’s take a bigger leap.

If I were a black MAN, would a President Obama make me feel entitled to avenge the three-hundred-year history of racial atrocities committed against me and my ancestors by burning, raping, pillaging, looting and otherwise expressing my Black rage? Would it be payback time for every White person who has veered away as we passed on a sidewalk, or hastily locked a car door because I was in pole-vaulting proximity to it, or nervously fidgeted while riding alone with me in an elevator?

How would I go about expressing my rage, exactly? Would I jeopardize my family’s security by risking arrest, imprisonment and maybe my life? Would I humiliate my mother and my pastor by creating an ugly headline? Would I tar President Obama and millions of black Americans with the steaming brush of my Black rage? Would I open a new bakery that specialized in selling Blue-Eyed Devil cakes?

I don’t think so.

If I were a Black man the day after an Obama Presidential win, I think I would be filled with joy. When I stopped celebrating in the streets and all the parties finally ended, even in the White neighborhoods, I would return home to my own bed wondering if I were dreaming. I would lay my head down on my pillow and, for the first time in my life, breathe a deep, cleansing sigh of relief that the bad old days were over. No Klansmen would come for me now, not even in my nightmares. The next day I would notice that Whites looked at me a little differently… not necessarily with respect, but with less pre-judgment… and with less fear.

And I would smile and say “Good Day.”