The Bucks Underground Railroad

On December 4 The Intelligencer of Doylestown–the newspaper that covers all of Bucks County–printed a brief and nasty letter to the editor from a New Britain woman–Nina Bolfing—reproduced below in its entirety:

 “Santa Claus used to be a big fat man with a long white beard.

 ”Now he is a skinny black man in a big white house.”

Yeah, I was pissed. Those righty letters often show up in our paper with an aroma of racist hatred for President Obama. Ms. Bolfing’s words reeked of either the Tea Party or the Kitchen Table Patriots or one of those other extreme righty groups (see The Bucks Underground Railroad April 5, 2011: ‘Soup for an Activist’s Soul”). I dashed off a response to The Intelligencer which they published December 9.  As a “skinny black” woman who lives in Doylestown I wrote how I would relish the opportunity to sit across from Ms. Bolfing and ask, Why do you hate people of color?

A friend of mine contacted me after my letter appeared and shared with me that Ms. Bolfing lives down the road from her. She offered to mediate a sit-down between the two of us.

Go for it, I said.

Long story short—after my friend left three voice messages, then dropped a letter to Ms. B by U.S. Mail, Ms B called her. Seems Ms. B was out of town–in the “Free State of Minnesota” (her words). She was unaware that her December 4 letter had been published and didn’t know that three voice messages were left on her phone. When my friend read my response to Ms. Bolfing that was published in the Intelligencer, Ms. B commented that I had “… no sense of humor….”. She added that  she was not a racist but told my friend that “Obama ‘bought his way’ into the White House.” She refused to meet with me.

Well  . . . that’s one chicken who won’t come home to roost.

Couple years ago while discussing global warming with a non-believer I attempted to describe some of the effects of climate change I’d witnessed while in Kenya, East Africa. I began ,“When I was in Kenya….” .  Never got to finish my thought. This non-believer leaned into me; eyes filled with ignorance and she said, “Well why don’t you go back there?”  Since that little ping-pong exchange, I discovered that this climate change denier is a high profile member of the Doylestown Kitchen Table Patriots. 

There are some individuals with tiny brains that you Just.Can’t.Talk.To.

This obsession about skin color by bigots isn’t confined to extreme political ideologues living in our neighborhoods. When President Obama spoke in Newtown, Connecticut on December 16 to bereaved families, friends, classmates, neighbors, and relatives of Sandy Hook Elementary children and teachers who were massacred on the Friday before, the website Daily Kos re-posted tweets from four angry people. Tweeting through their real names they demanded the “n-word President”get off national television because he was interrupting their overly-aggressive arm-chair pastime of watching Sunday night football:

Just a few of the countless racist tweets during President Obama’s historic speech honoring Sandy Hook victims, by The Troubadour

Do these four tweeters believe brown/black athlete players should also “get off” television screens? Last time I checked NFL player rosters, there were a lot of dark faces in various team uniforms.

As a person of color I had to speak out against this use of the “n” word and other coded hate messages that attempt to pollute our America.

President Barack Obama will be inaugurated for a second term on Sunday January 20, 2013. Four years ago many of you readers may have witnessed that magical happening in Washington DC. Be there again—and become one in that big picture of What Is America: Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow.

Me the Granny has one more post to get out of my system before 2012 goes away.

Happy New Year.