Soon after I arrived at my parents’ house, 40 miles south of Atlanta, I heard on the news that some guy was trying to keep President Barack Obama off the ballot here in the Peach State.
I knew there were nutcases and jackasses here in Georgia just like everywhere else because I’ve been here before. I remember strolling through Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta one night with my parents, and then hearing less than a year later – during the 1996 Summer Olympics – that some guy had detonated a bomb in that same park, killing two and injuring over 100 others.
I’ve seen signs of racism and sexism here, although nothing as overt as one would expect if one paid attention in history class during high school and learned that here in the Deep South, not too long ago, white supremacists killed three civil rights workers, racists used water cannons on elderly African-Americans and white cops unleashed attack dogs on cowering people of color.
A laser version of the Confederate flag – which is associated with slavery and the Ku Klux Klan in the minds of many – was flashed on the side of Stone Mountain last July 4 during the most remarkable fireworks show I’d ever seen. Since everybody near us cheered widely and I was vastly outnumbered by the crowd of 40,000, I kept my discomfort to myself.
My family and I found ourselves on the wrong bus one time – we were heading to the Georgia Aquarium and misunderstood the directions given to us by a well-meaning but difficult to understand woman with a thick southern accent – and were treated to a tour of metropolitan Atlanta neighborhoods that was memorable for the following reasons: 1) the obvious, overwhelming poverty was enough to profoundly affect any middle class, bleeding heart liberal who happened to trespass in this almost-foreign territory, and 2) we became acutely aware that we were the only white people not only on the bus but within eyesight. I could feel the stares and glares of my fellow passengers; although I kept gazing out the window, I swear I saw people elbowing each other and pointing at us out of the corner of my eye.
And then I realized: this is the way people of color feel all the time.
We eventually made it to the aquarium, which was brand new and absolutely amazing, without incident and as I viewed the eels and jellyfish, I felt ashamed that I had been so uncomfortable because of skin color – in this case, mine. I’m still uncomfortable with how uncomfortable I was.
Since I’ve been here this last time, I haven’t seen a single person of color except on television. Although Georgia is said to have a large African-American population, apparently no one from that community lives in or visits my parents’ neighborhood. (We’re in a sprawling golf-cart community built in the middle of rural Georgia; one gains admission only after the security guard staffing the gatehouse deems you “safe.”) Thankfully, my parents are cosmopolitan because I have enough on my mind these days without worrying about what the lack of diversity in their neck o’ the woods might mean.
So I was pleased to hear today that Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge Michael Malihi rejected the complaint that the president isn’t a natural-born citizen and should therefore be disqualified from holding the office he’s held for the last three years.
I was also glad to learn that although similar complaints have been filed in several other states, none has been taken seriously by our arbiters of justice.
Say what you will about Orly Taitz and the other loony, mostly conservative birthers – some of whom consider themselves deeply religious yet genuflect at the altar of The Donald – but they’re persistent...kind of like a bill collector, a psychotic stalker or a hungry mosquito trapped in your tent.
Obama photo courtesy Newsone.com.
Source: CBS Atlanta.
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