When racism gets "up close and personal".

  I feel for Melissa Harris- Perry who had a scary encounter in "fly over" country with a racist who wanted to remind her who is in charge, recently.

"Monday night I was sitting in a hotel lobby in downtown Des Moines with my back to a wall of windows, my eyes fixed on the TV, my attention wholly focused on early caucus results. I didn’t notice until he was standing right next to me, much closer than is ordinary or comfortable. When he started he speaking it was like he was picking up in the middle of sentence, finishing a conversation we had begun earlier, but I couldn’t remember ever meeting him.

“…So what is it that you teach?”

“I am a professor of political science.”

“My wife is a professor of communications.”

“Does she teach here in Iowa?”

“What I want to know is how you got credentialed to be on MSNBC.”

I am not sure if it is how he spat the word credentialed, or if it is how he took another half step toward me, or if it is how he didn’t respond to my question, but the hairs on my arm stood on end. I ignored it. Told myself everything was ok.

“Well. It is not exactly a credential…” I began.

“But why you? Why would they pick you?”

Now I know something is wrong. Now his voice is angry. Now a few other people have stopped talking and started staring. Now he is so close I can feel his breath. Before I can answer his
 unanswerable question of why they picked me, he begins to tell me why he has picked me.

“I just want you to know why I am doing this.”
Oh – there is a this. He is going to do a this. To me. And he is going to tell me why.
I freeze. Not even me – the girl in me. The one who was held down by an adult neighbor and as he raped her. The one who listened as he explained why he was doing this. She freezes.

  He speaks. And moves closer. Is there a knife under the coat? A gun? Worse?

 And I can’t hear all the words. But I catch “Nazi Germany” and I catch “rise to power.” But I can’t move. I am lulled by a familiar powerlessness, muteness, that comes powerfully and unexpectedly. It grips me. Everything is falling away. Until in my peripheral vision I catch sight of a ponytail, the movement of an arm, the sound of familiar young voices and I remember… my students.

My students are sitting just a few feet from me. I am not alone in this Iowa hotel lobby. I have traveled here with 22 of my undergraduate students from Wake Forest University. We are here on the first stop in a journey to understand the democratic process. I am in this lobby because I am waiting for them to come back from seeing their very first Democratic caucuses. Remembering them rouses me.

Instead of sitting still as he tells me what he is going to do and why, I jump up. I move. I put space – a table – between him and me. My friend jumps too. It is breathtaking how fearlessly – almost recklessly – she throws herself between he and I. Together we raise our voices and make a fuss. He turns. He runs out. He jumps in a car. He drives off. We try to explain to hotel security what has happened and how I receive hate mail and even death threats, how I have had people show up at my workplace, how this might be serious. They listen politely, but this is the Iowa caucus, and I am not a candidate, so they go back to their evening. And we go back to ours." [More]

But it's not only Iowa. This kind of stuff is happening in places like New York as well.

"A rally was held Monday evening at the State University of New York in Albany after three black female students were attacked by a group of white men and women during a confrontation on a bus over the weekend, officials said.

The students, who attend the upstate New York campus, said they were harassed and assaulted while riding the bus early Saturday morning, according to a letter to the campus from the university's president, Robert J. Jones.

According to the three women, who have not been identified by authorities or the university, a group of 10 to 12 white men and women used racial slurs and physically assaulted them, Jones said.

One of the alleged victims spoke at the rally, according to CNN affiliate WTEN. "We are shocked, upset, but we will remain unbroken. We are proud of who we are," she told the gathered crowd through tears.

 

The incident was caught on cell phone video and video from the Capital District Transportation Authority bus, university police Chief J. Frank Wiley said in a statement." [Source]

 

We already know that racists in America do not like the black male, but apparently the black female is high up on their hateration pecking order as well.

 

Sadly, racists are indeed getting bolder and angrier. In a way you almost wish that one of their chosen leaders will win the damn election (I see you Mr. Trump) so that they can "take their country back" and just leave the rest of us alone.

 

Finally, the state of Georgia executed a 72 year old man last night. Let me repeat that: The state of Georgia executed a 72 year old man last night.  

 

Carry on.

 

*Pic from msnbc.com