Wow. Just wow.

Certainly there is much talk today about ‘what Michelle Obama’ said, and really meant. Many kinds of talk and opinion… various people have been discussing or debating or just flatly carrying on about what Michelle Obama meant or didn’t mean, and weighing in on her character, brainpower, heart, or lack of such, etc. (Her husband, later said she meant her words more narrowly with regard to the political process wherein people stood up for change.)

My thoughts however, keep returning to another matter entirely. I’m not new to scabrous words. This man’s outburst at Starbucks is not the first, but merely the elevendy-millionth time as a woman from a minority group myself, I’ve heard such or been felled by such words personally.

BUT, especially since being flash-shot by this man at Starbucks bellowing about “a nigger only gonna be president over my dead and burning body,” ….I rode the Time Machine back over the many decades I’ve be blessed to live thus far, and I see, with immediacy, how far we’ve come in this nation… meaning, that yes, any of us minority persons can be objected to publicly nowadays, and called names out loud, in print, in front of and behind backs….

but NOT immediately and with full looking away by all authorities and cronies, be dragged to the dark of the woods and dealt an ‘inch of one’s life’ beating, or death with finality, there…

when I count the changes of consciousness in law enforcement in many parts of our country, the changes in appellate court sight and insight, the plethora of ways eye-witness news is nowadays availed and delivered, the tireless souls who keep driving for justice for those unjustly treated….

then I am reminded for the uncountable-eth number of times in my life, that such as this man’s outburst at Starbucks, may in fact, represent progress.

This is just a taste of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés post at The Moderate Voice. It reminds me of a post I've been meaning to write for a while : Formative racist moments.

People of color deal on a daily basis with direct (as in a person screaming a racist epithet) or indirect (as in a magazine full of faces that look like us) messages that are meant to undermine us and prove our inferiority. Yet these mundane occurrences are not what formative racist moments are made of.

A formative racist moment exposes the offender such an unexpected way, that it alters one perception of humanity. This is what Dr. Pinkola Estés describes in this essay and it's why you should make sure you read her essay from top to bottom.

Go. There. NOW!