Racism continues to linger

Within the past year, America has been slapped with the reality that racism still exists.

While some people attempt to deny it, racism continues to rear it’s ugly head toward the forefront of the public eye.

One place that is frequently used as an arena to purport racist remarks is the Internet. Because of the Internet’s “shield of invisibility,” people often take advantage and allow themselves to unleash their words of hate.

During homecoming week, just days before the election, one of our writers wrote a column titled “Dear Sen. McCain.”

The story featured a student voicing her concerns on the economy and healthcare.

She discussed the kinds of things she would like to see on McCain’s agenda if he was elected president.

The article was written in order to spark conversation and provoke response from our online readers.

But instead of intellectual feedback, her story received lots of negative criticism and plenty of racist comments.

We’ve posted some of the remarks that commenters left behind. We were amazed ourselves as we read the comments.

These comments concerning the election are clear indicators that racism and prejudice are still alive and well in America.

Our guess is the race to the White House stirred the soup in our supposed “Melting Pot,” and revealed the bitter bits of racism at the bottom of the bowl.

President-elect Barack Obama’s role as a candidate has really allowed people to “remember” that there are problems that black people and other minorities face in America. CNN attempted to reveal these issues in its series “Black in America,” which aired in July. But sadly, even some of the nation’s top journalists on a major network, like CNN, are unable to convey the struggle many of us endure.

Although many of you may not agree with us printing some of the insulting comments that were posted online, understand we are not giving these cowards another platform to spread their hate.

We are showing these quotes because we want to out the cowards that chose to spew hate on our site, via weak aliases. We’ve made pivotal social strides since the 1960s, but we still have more work to do. When there are stories of people spray-painting Obama and Biden signs stuck in the yards of homeowners, then you know there’s still an issue. When people are planning assassination attempts, there is reason to be concerned.

Let’s face it, there are people who are upset because of who the nation chose to lead the United States of America for the next four years.

Many are upset not because they think he is a bad choice, but some simply do not want a black man to be president.

To the online readers that were concerned about the content online in the comment portion of our site under the “Dear Sen. McCain,” story, please know The Famuan did not leave the quotes unattended and they have been removed.

Now that it has our attention, let’s work as a whole to eradicate a behavior that does nothing but hold our country back and discourage inappropriate venting at thefamuanonline.com