Proud To Be Black

In January 2009, I had the honor and pleasure of putting the official portrait of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama into a picture frame and placing it in the position of Commander-In Chief, as the head of our military chain of command on the wall. To see a black man as the leader of our nation filled my heart with “glory.”

Recently, former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani said, “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the President loves America,” said Giuliani. “He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.” I felt that feeling that most of us black folks get around the world, when something horrific happens across the African diaspora that makes you want to fight back and stand taller. You know what I’m talking about.

Like the President, I too am the grandson of a World War II veteran. In fact, my great-grandfather, grandfather and my father have worn our nation’s uniform. As you can see I served in the United States Air Force and retired with 20 years of honorable service. Over the first two years of my retirement I have doubled down on my commitment to our country through community service, just like the President, during his earlier years as a young man.

Growing up, through the love of this country, the United States of America, as black, is something I know about because I have lived it just like the President. All of us, black people, regardless of our social economic status face the same challenges of this sick ideology that white people are superior to people of other races and that therefore whites should politically, economically and socially dominate non-whites. There are millions of people in America carrying this sickness today.

To them Obama the outsider equals the “black” outsider. It’s how they feel when it comes to their feelings about the country, religion and citizenship. The Mayor’s remarks are a dog whistle calling the sickly home and driving the point that Obama and black folks are not “one of us.”

James Baldwin, one of my favorite black authors said, “I love America more than any other country in this world and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” Perhaps that’s what President Obama and I get that Mayor Giuliani doesn’t. However, under any circumstance the President hasn’t and more than 40 million of us surely will not apologize for being black.