There are white people on this timeline seriously claiming racism didn’t exist until Obama became president and that he’s responsible for the division in this country.
Racism existed long before Obama ever stepped foot in the White House. Slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, lynchings, voter suppression, and countless acts of discrimination all happened before 2008.
What Obama’s presidency did was expose how uncomfortable some people were with seeing a Black man occupy the highest office in the country. The division wasn’t created by his existence…it was revealed by the reaction to it.
You can disagree with Obama’s policies all day, but blaming him for the existence of racism is either ignorance or a deliberate attempt to rewrite history.
USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
That you think we have unqualified candidates is incorrect. All who make it through the process are quite smart. And free market doesn't apply to medicine, but that is another discussion. RIght now we have a shortage of physicians in the United States.