A sad truth

This past weekend I went and saw the movie, The Secret Life of Bees. (I highly recommend it.) This film was set in the South in the sixties right around the time the Civil Rights movement was starting to gain a head of steam. As I watched this movie and thought about Obama's candidacy for the highest office in the land I was overcome with emotion as I thought about how far we have come as a nation. This emotion came to a climax on Tuesday night when Obama was elected President. From Tuesday on I really started to believe that this nation may be turning a corner, where race is no longer a divisive thing. I began to believe that maybe we are almost to a place where, as the great Dr. King described, people wont be judged on the color of their skin but by the content of their character. These thoughts came to a screeching halt today when I went grocery shopping. I was walking through the aisles when I was approach by a conservative evangelical friend of mine who knew I preffered Barack Obama to his John McCain, he shook my hand and said, "On monday morning every white person in America is to report to the cotton fields to work." Part of me wanted to punch him in the face, but instead I told him that was the least funny, and most offensive thing I have heard in my entire life. How could someone make light of a beautiful historic moment in our country's history by making such an obtuse rascist remark? The thing that bothers me most is that this individual who holds this deep seeded racisim claims to follow the same Jesus I follow. Something isnt right. Before Tuesday night I had little hope in America, after Tuesday night hope began to build, and today Ive started to lose it again. America, land of ignorance.