Symbolic Cracks ...

in the Nation's Foundation?

Cracking was found in the stones at the top of the Washington Monument Tuesday evening, the National Park Service reported.

The National Park Service temporarily closed the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and the Old Post Office Tower as a precaution following Tuesday’s earthquake.

The cracking in the Monument was discovered during a secondary inspection. Structural engineers will evaluate the cracks Wednesday and determine how to repair them before the Monument is reopened.

If the job market, manufacturing reports, housing starts and overall Dow performance weren't enough to convince you, perhaps structural cracks in the foundation will?

Coincidental sure, but let's not overlook the symbolism...

Some people still haven't gotten the message of what our shared country faces, looking ahead. Untouched today, perhaps, they expect their tomorrow's will present as happily, making light of the countryman's ills and well, pretty much partying on like it's 1999.

It's not.

The more preventative maintenance work we do today, together, the better options we will have available to us in the coming years. Voters get that, I think.

Finally, we're more likely in the coming presidential election to vote less on popularity ("reminds me of a kid brother") or personal style, and more on who we honestly think can get the job done.

That's why -- I'm still holding out hope for Mitt Romney, a more mature candidate with a track record of working in difficult situations, and doing what it takes -- in a hard cold business sense -- to get the work done.

Remember the Salt Lake -- really, the U.S. -- Olympics fiasco before he stepped in? Corruption, running way over budget, with many wondering if the thing could be pulled off? Don't care much about his hairdo or personal relationship with Christ -- he successfully got the job done.

He is politically groomed -- no surprises, no feet in mouth, no jumping into situations like the black professor/white policeman where it does not dignify the office of the President to intervene.

Let the celebrities handle the public service announcements ("Parents: get involved in your children's educations" or, "Remember: for healthy bodies, choose the best available healthy options available to you today and take care of yourself for a healthier tomorrow.)

Let the president worry about the nation's economy, doing what he can with the tools available to him, to take on the bigger, more important issues tody. We can assure equal opportunities under the law by continuing to enforce the rules on the books; we don't need additional legislation, or Court games, to manipulate the system, righting the wrongs of the the past by penalizing other innocent players today.

Let's not give in to the temptations to play the race card, or "blame Whitey", as so many young media building their career stars are wont to do. Raised on a diet of racial strife, some already are dividing us up by skin tone, and pointing fingers too. Of course, there will be a healthy pushback since this liberal guilt is not shared by all.

Case in point?

But I must point something out to folks who equate collecting public assistance and “dependency” with being black. When Obama was a child, his mother did collect food stamps. His white mother.

Respectful pushback?

She presumably need the help in feeding her biracial son, and herself, after the black man who impregnated and married her left the family without enough resources to take care of his own. Thankfully, their were maternal grandparents, and other men, able to step in and help his family feed the chubby youngster, supplemented with the government help.

That's the reason you don't toss out things like: His white mother.

Because thankfully, not all of us are at an age, where we came up in a world where blacks were routinely discriminated against. We know low-esteem women who are passed from man to man, and accept that role, bearing babies for many. Often, these are indeed, white women. We've sat in classrooms, or shared schools at least, with other students who had the exact same opportunities to lift themselves via education, hard work and will. We've competed honestly, we've completed our races.

Thinking like this, really does hold one back:

There is no way to sell the idea that being a black man in America gives you tremendous benefit.

It's a dated mentality, much like that which separates pre- and post-Title IX women, who -- even if they were not athletic -- gained in amazing ways when the playing field were open to all achievers, regardless of superficial characteristics. Some seized the opportunities available to them in this new ball game, and forged ahead.

Others presumed discrimination, or sadly accepted the words of those who would denigrate them based on superficialities without fighting back and making the most of what was there before them.

I remember the day a biracial lifeguard of mine, up in New Richmond Wisconsin (please, don't read too much symbolism into the little city's name), came to my desk excitedly telling me of her acceptance to UW Madison. She had applied only a week or two before, the acceptance letter came so quickly...

She knew, however, why her acceptance came so much sooner than her equally talented teen co-workers and classmates, some of whom even had greater grades, rankings, test scores, and community contributions. (Kids in high school who work so closely in small academic communities like that are generally honest about their strengths, knowing without external measures, who is truly the smartest amongst them in understanding the materials. They know the best grades often is not the indicator of who best knows the material, and understands it best.)

This young woman got in, while others patiently waited for a fuller examination of their own records, because she had checked a box, written an essay, describing herself as a product of her white mother, and her black father, a professor at the University of Wisconsin -- River Falls campus nearby. She and her brothers were loved, and not only fully accepted in the community she was raised in, but she considered herself as one of the them. No distinctions, until people in the bigger world begin classifying by racial makeup, determined to compensate for the sins of the past.

Access to opportunity previously denied is what they are meant to redress.

Except, this young woman herself was never denied opportunities based on her coloring. There really aren't band of white racists roaming the countryside randomly picking black or biracial children to enslave or "keep out" anymore.

What message was sent when she was favored in the process? She came to me to share her good news, mostly because she was unable to share her good news right then in the lifeguard breakroom, understanding that others were still waiting to hear if they'd be accepted in also. She knew, and said so in so many words, that only one characteristic distinguished her record from that of those with whom she shared the higher-level classrooms and worked alongside. I knew too, but understood where she was coming from, and was glad to hear her happy news, even if she was waiting to tell others, because, through no fault of her own, she was on a different track now...

The Boomers, especially the more middle- and upper-classes, indeed might have lived under segregation. They might have personally benefitted on the backs of others, more qualified candidates who were held back or excluded. Those days, people, are indeed over, much as many -- in the oppressor and in the previously oppressed categories -- might find personal gain in pretending they are not.

My grade school, which sat on the edge of the quarry had Pedraza's, McCann's, Lindquist's, O'Brien's, Rodriquez's, Tatgenhorst's, Korenic's, Bulanda's, Anderson's and Andersen's, and on and on and on... Ethnic names, many newly relocated into the small town from the racial upheavals in the southern parts of the city that drove us from our homes, even if we'd have chosen to stay...

We never saw ourselves as a mini-melting-pot though, we were just kids going to class and playing our games on the playground. Only in looking back, at that delicious roster of names, could I appreciate what I was provided. My father chose public school educations, not for the cost -- he would have killed himself working the overtime to do what it took to get his children the best educations possible -- but because the public schools had science laboratories, full gyms, and every opportunity available to would-be-learners that the local Catholic school in the next town over (South Holland) simply could not match at the time...

Our high school -- Thornwood -- was integrated, even if less minority children participated in the advanced classes, and took part in the rich offering of extracurriculars outside of academics. Eventually though, TW became more an "athletics" school, showcasing the talents of Cliff Floyd (baseball), and especially Eddy Curry (basketball). The recruits, the attention paid to the latter, who jumped from high school hoops into the pros, too soon if you ask many, elevated the school's status. City parents sent their children on RTA buses, even when they didn't live in the district, to take advantage of the opportunities.

My friend's parents, who have since moved away, said later, they should have spoken out, once the "integration" numbers had the white population of students at 50%. If the original justification for drawing boundaries and implementing busing were to achieve equality, an artificially engineered formula based on numbers and percentages and superficial characteristics, the lines should have been redrawn when that goal was achieved, and then, fully overcome.

Instead, now the school is a strong percentage "minority", and many whites, seeking the best academic opportunities for their own daughters and sons, and wary of the cultural changes that come with being a cultural minority, moved away to northwestern Indiana and further downstate in Illinois. The school's reputation is nothing compared to what it once was, the programs offered. I don't see who benefits when there is a takeover of neighborhoods and school buildings, but not the successful culture and opportunities that built them up in the first place.

Let's talk about race, sure, but let's keep the conversation honest. Let's not allow the Boomers, and those perhaps sheltered themselves, to look at this as "His white mother was on government programs." Those conversations do nothing to advance us as a while, nor are they accurate that it's not advantageous in the way things are currently structured, to be a "previously oppressed minority here to embrace discrimination today to right the wrongs of the past."

Back to my gradeschool... it too is in dire financial constraints, and they've pretty much cut back all there is to cut, as so many schools in less affluent areas have done. We really are all in this together, and making demands and putting children at risk, in the end are not the legal answers when the money simply is not there.

Sure, we can see everything through a racial lens. Instead of using our minds and working toward building something better, we can sue (and sometimes lose) and whine and demand and compare, but at some point, when the money gets tight, we have to get over our own feelings of discrimination and begin to get beyond our simplistic racial characteristics and choose to see the reality.




Conclusion? The rise of the entitlement mentality and the decline of the educational standards are no coincidence. We've got to be fair, today, in our social policies, and understand the limitations of artificially favoring this one over that, and measuring people's worth in terms of color of their skin.

We need to fix the rules of the game, and let the people individually fix themselves and their communities. Really, it's the only hope we've got. Stop living in the past, and start confronting the ugly realities of today. It will be a hard slog, no doubt, but we owe it to ourselves to make it happen.