WAKE UP BLACK AMERICANS!  Can we not discern the times?  It is not Barack Obama who is under attack!  It is each one of our sons and daughters, and our grand & great grand sons and daughters!  How we respond during this democratic process will determine their struggles for future elections to offices in this country.  And frankly I am dissatisfied with some of what I’ve seen and heard even from our own people.

     Yes we have two viable democratic presidential candidates, but to openly speak negatively against a Black candidate for the purpose of supporting a White candidate is not in my view a very honorable thing to do.  I have to admit, six months ago, I was for Hillary Clinton for president.  I felt this country needed a change and I thought a woman in the White House would bring about such a change.  When I first heard of the young Black man Barack Obama, I thought to myself “yea right.”  After all these years of struggle, we couldn’t even land a “Vice Presidency” and now this young man thinks he is going to actually win the presidency, and against the Clintons?  I suspect many other Black Americans had this same first reaction.  But after hearing both him and his wife speak, I thought “My God they are both ready for the White House!”  Then I heard he was a Muslim, I said “Oh well,” that’s that.  Then I heard he wasn’t and I began to listen more intently at what he had to say, and his message on change was surely already rooted in my spirit, and I got hooked, and thought that as a Black people, we really need to rally behind this young man to help him make history. 

     Then all hell broke loose, as I watched our people become divided over two feasible candidates, Clinton and Obama.  I did not like what I saw and heard, and considered the many reasons we, as a Black people in general, still can not get away from this crab mentality of whenever one of us try to accomplish something that has not been achieved, or the other have not done, it resultantly ends with one of us who is responsible for trying to pull down the other in an effort to pull them selves up. 

     As I look at the divide between the ages, I had to consider whether or not it is because of envy, or jealousy, or just simply anger because after all, “it should have been one of us older folks who walked and fought for the change in our era, and who were victims of the suffering of injustices, the denial of the job, the pay increases, the promotion, or who experienced sitting on the back of the bus; or the two water fountains one for “Whites” and the other for “Negros” (Mama what’s a Negro was my question as a child the first time I got on a bus passed empty seats to sit in the back to go down town Norfolk, VA with my mother in the early 50s?); or one of us who passed a brand new school for White children to get to the all Black school with beat up walls, dilapidated bathrooms, old raggedy hand me down textbooks from a White school, that used them in junior high and gave them to us in high school; or one of us who marched down City Hall to protest their denial to build or remodel the Black school, only to have it built 10 years later after you graduate; or one who marched and went to jail with Martin Luther King (I did not have the honor). 

     But in spite of all that, as we look back on our lives, we realized we still did not taste of the fruit of our labors to accomplish all that was possible for us.  And secretly some are bitter, and it rises every now and then in spite of our education, in spite of the fact that we are living better than we’ve ever lived.  Why? Because there were and to my knowledge still are no counseling or recovery programs to get over the trauma that discrimination causes.  And when preachers try to deal with it the best way they know how through light of the word, get condemned as hate preachers.  Though we have overcome through our spirituality and faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we still struggle with flash backs with what some Whites did and more so with what some Blacks help them do to us, that we feel somehow hindered us from being all we could be.  But in reality, we did it to ourselves either by simply giving up or by not helping the next person who tries and has a chance at it.  That is why I feel so strongly about the recent events that will go down in our history whether this young Black man Barack Obama, wins the presidency or not.  However, we can change all that by speaking out against anyone who does not play fair in this political game, registering to vote, and casting our vote to help him get elected as the first Black president of the United States.  I believe if both Black and White Americans want real healing from the past injustices and hurts that can bring the reality of hope not only to Black Americans and White Americans but to all Americans, they must play fair and allow the people vote their conscience based on facts and faith, rather than falsehood and fear. 

    Realizing this truth myself at age 61 in a few months, I resolved in my mind that it is time, not necessarily to forget, because the Bible commands us to remember our bondage and the God who brought us out; but to move PAST what happened to US, what we did not get or achieve, and move FORWARD with what we can get now even if it is only through helping the next generation accomplish it.  But what I have seen and heard these last few weeks, have disturbed me greatly; especially this idea, of the impact one person can have on another person’s course in life. 

     I am concerned about the precedent these recent events can have on our children’s political endeavors in the future.  For instance, these events are telling them:  If you are Black, what your mama, your daddy, your sister, your brother, your aunt, your uncle, your cousin, and even what your pastor said, did, or didn't say or do can disqualify you from running, and/or winning an election to a political office in this country.  It is telling them that their associations with even a family member or someone closer than a brother will determine the kind of judgment they have.  Therefore, to prove you are not just like them, you must denounce them.  “THE DEVIL IS A LIAR!  This is not true!  There can be two brothers growing up in the same house, and one end up in jail and the other graduates from college and become a prominent figure in his community. There can be two sisters in the house one a Schizophrenia, and the other a president and chancellor of Bible Institute.  To allow the news media, and anyone else to suggest such a thing and poison people’s minds with negative words and actions is not productive for this country’s future, and is in fact disgraceful.  This is the kind of thing we once fought against, calling anything like it “discrimination,” which is anything or anyone who deliberately hinders another person from getting a job or position, by changing the rules in the middle of the game, for the purpose of making it harder for him or her so that justification can be made to select someone else of another race, or the same race but a different skin tone.      

     How is it that a “PASTOR GONE TEMPORARILY MAD” can affect any man or woman from becoming president of the United States, or any thing else?  How is it that any Black person can justify supporting a White woman, who was married to a White man who was already President of the United States, and caught in adultery in the WHITE HOUSE, yet she did not get a divorce, and went on to become a Senator, proving her good judgment, AND then turn around and speak against and condemn a young Black man because of something his pastor said, and charge him with showing poor judgment because he didn’t leave his church!   How can we in good conscience allow this to happen?  Choosing which church to attend is not decided only by whom one's pastor is but by where one lives, where one’s family is, where one’s friends are, the kind of programs the church has to meet one’s needs, and most important, by where God inspires or leads one to go.   

     A person, with integrity, love and care for all people, no matter what background, origin etc., are the qualities we need in the President of the United States.  Such a person does not leave a church solely because of one person.  The church needs all kinds of people to survive.  For what I have seen of this young man’s character, I would suggest the church grew because of his and others like his presence were there.  I hope he finds strength to stay there.  His silence when Rev. Wright first spoke out proved Obama has the love of God in him and a forgiving spirit.  To prey on the divide that we caused ourselves, I even heard some news media report that Rev. Wright should not be forgiven.  Well, Bill Clinton was forgiven, and is getting a third chance to be in the White House.  Rev. Wright will be forgiven too, but first he had to be rebuked.  Barack Obama, no matter how much younger, had the power, authority, right spirit and the guts to do it, which proved tremendous strength.  One of the biggest problems in the Black Church today is few have what it takes to confront a church leader who is turning or has turned out of the way.  God said a child (younger person) should lead them.  Do we want to fight against God?  Pray for all the candidates, pray more for the one we NEED in the White House.

Rev. Veronica Muriel Bunch