Confession of a Black Man

By Eddie Griffin

Thursday, March 20, 2008

I am surprised that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram decided to open the discussion on race relations, a subject dealt with in the newspaper, one-sidedly, for so long. Not to mention, the one black editorialist Bob Ray Sanders is constantly roasted in the newspaper as always “playing the race card”.

(See “We Need to Talk”, Thursday, March 20, 2008)

After much discussion in the national media about race, as it relates to the 2008 presidential campaigns, and recent controversies created by surrogates of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Star-Telegram announced, “Let the conversation begin” about race and perceived racism.

My first thought was like that of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth!” The theme of most white America is “lie to me” and “make me feel good about myself”. And, if I don’t lie, they call me a “race hater”. I be damned if I do. I be damned if I don’t… speak as an African-American man.

Barack Obama could not have grown up with Eddie Griffin. I would have hounded him as being an Oreo, black on the outside and white on the inside. His thinking, to me, is more white than black. Therefore, he could have had no input in the discussion of black liberation in the 1960s, as black conservatives had no input then. Barack Obama is conservative in the eyes of more militant African-America, just as Bob Ray Sanders is on the right side of Dixie.

No, white America, you can’t handle the truth. You want me to tell you a lie? Here is a lie: I love you white America, unconditionally. My wife doesn’t even get that much commitment from me. And you want me to love you more than myself. Geesh!

Oh, you say I am an old angry black militant from the revolution days of the Civil Rights Movement, and that deep down inside I hate white people. Not so.

There are some things about white people’s practice of brotherly kindness that doesn’t sit well with me. For example: They like to have the last authoritative word on any and every subject, as if my intelligence is inferior. It makes me angry, not hateful. And, the Bible says, “Be angry, but sin not”. I can be angry without punching white people in the noose, a temptation I have suppressed for all of my life, and yet I am not non-violent, in the MLK sense.

Basically, I feel sorry for humanity, because a lot of white people just don’t get it… so sad, the human race. But my saying that I, a black man, feel sorry for them only angers them even more. Why?


Responses my be sent to eddiegriffin_basg@yahoo.com or evansavenue76104@yahoo.com.