Not so long ago, in the 60s, black people were segregated in the southern states of the US, difficult as it now seems to comprehend. Dylan had it right in his talking blues:
'I was out there painting on the old wood shed
When a pot of black paint did fall on my head.
Well I got down to scrub and rub
But I had to sit at the back of the tub.
Cost a quarter, half price.'
Then came JF Kennedy, Martin Luther King and his famous 'I had a dream' speech, Rosa Parks (who recently died) who started the Montgomery bus boycott when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.
Now we have a 'black' man taking over the presidency this day, although he's of mixed race and is happily adopted as the first black president of the US. How things have changed!
But maybe it's time to stop defining people by their ethnicity and colour. I have often wondered about the form at the back of job applications that ask you to tick boxes about your origins. Black Carribean, Asian, white British, Black American, etc. According to Gopal, my nephew who works for the NHS as an equal opportunities manager, this information is used to make sure that a 'reasonable' percentage of minority ethnic applicants are applying for the post. Positive discrimination is illegal in UK so he figures that this gives a true picture of the type of applicants who are responding. But this is not the case.
So many other other factors have to be taken into consideration. For example, interest in the post, suitable qualifications, experience and not least, renumeration.
A lot of confusion surrounds this issue. An aquaintance of mine who works for the council as an equality manager talks about the racism in Scotland against the English. Now, this is really a misnomer as the Scots and English are considered to be of the same race, although this is strictly not true with third and fourth generation Asians and others living here. This has more to do with language and accent. Scots are nationalistic, not racist. I tried to put her right about this accusation, but I'm not sure if she accepted this definition.
In the past, I was a member, for a short time, of an equalities team at the school I worked in. But the policy was couched in language I just couldn't get my head round. For example, all ethnic minorities (note the reversal of the terms 10-years ago) were black, even the Chinese population. But not the Japanese as they were considered to be too afluent to be included. Yet, when I pointed out that a common insult among the Asians was to call someone else 'black', this was a great insult.
I was told that this is not the point. The reason that the word 'black' was used was to allow them to identify with the black power struggle for equal rights in America.
I resigned.
Now, Britain has become such an ethnically mixed community compared to what it was even thirty-years ago that there is a much more liberal and accepting take on the situation.
However, I won't be watching the inauguration. To me, Obama is firstly a president and secondly a man who can either help to put a stop to the wars around the world or carry on with the destructive policies of the Bush administration.
