Prometheus 6   

Keeping it real

from The Black Hand Side

Do We Need "Racial Healing" or "Racial Truth"?

Next week in my city of Atlanta, former president Jimmy Carter and current governor Sonny Perdue will host a forum on "racial reconciliation" and "racial healing" at the Carter Center. The forum "will center on Georgia's role in the Civil War and in the civil rights era, as well as on how the state [of Georgia] became a model for the New South". From Jimmy Carter, I believe that it is an honest, albeit somewhat superficial, attempt to address some of the issues that continue to divide the races in this country (and the world). The jury remains out on Perdue though. Nevertheless, what strikes me as being very interesting is the fact that these events never address what needs to be the center of any racial debate. We need more forums on racial "truth", not racial "healing". That is, what exactly is racism, how did it come about, what has it done, who has it impacted (and how), who constructed it, to what end, how does it impact domestic and foreign policy, and how do we deconstruct something so pervasive in society and in the world. I see honest, informed dialogue about these questions as being fundamental to any sincere discourse about the racial problems in this country.

Don't read this and say the brother is denying the need for racial healing. He's saying racial truth is necessary to achieve that healing, and that it's not forthcoming.