Again, I’m not too sure who is responsible for this, but I must say… Brilliant! Yesterday one of our readers, Truly Jones, left a ’pingback’ (which is blogspeak for a note) noting they linked to our article ‘Riddle Me This, Cindy.’ I’m always so grateful when people take time out of their day to read and comment, let alone link to the site, that I always check it out. I’m not sure if the Jones’ are responsible for the ‘That One ‘08′ movement, but I love it.

Racism is a touchy subject, especially for this 20’s something white-boy from New Jersey, and it’s not often that in theseparts race is celebrated in a multi-racial fashion. While New Jersey seems to be less tolerant of outright racism, you would be a fool to think that racism in this part of the country doesn’t exist. Part of the problem surrounding racism is that NOT talking about it is worse. Racism in this day and age is proving to be one of the most passive aggressive forms of discrimination. Ever since the end of slavery, racism has slowly gone the way from active discrimination to passive discrimination. There are several pit-stops along the way, some good, some bad, but for the most part, by no longer talking about race, we’ve made internalized the negative feelings as it is no longer socially acceptable in the mainstream to be outright racist.

While I don’t think that ‘ThatOne08.com’ celebrates the differences per se… The fact that we as a people can get together and sort of laugh it off is a step in the right direction. All of us for equality are and should be irate at the fact that race is even an issue in this election, but clearly it is. ThatOne08.com is a great website because it brings much needed humor to a very volatile situation while at the same time making the discussion about race that much more accessible.

Fact of the matter is sad but true, there exists a whole lot more racism in this country than we would like to believe. The race for the white house has stirred up a lot of bad feelings in a lot of people, and it’s pretty damn sad to think that in 2008 this should still be an issue. For a people who consider themselves top of the world in terms of just about everything, Americans should take a look at themselves and realize we have a lot of work to do in this department. While a Black President, and trust us we wouldn’t vote for him just because he’s black (see the previous post) will be a step in the right direction and hopefully years later our children will wonder how we could ever have cared about the color of a person’s skin, we have a lot of work to do.

A few days ago I was discussing this topic in depth with A.K Yams via cellular and we wondered how ultimately race would affect this election. I believe that this election is a great time for a lot of people to overcome their feelings of prejudice and cast their ballot in the right direction. I believe that in areas where it’s not OK to outwardly support Obama, and trust us again there are plenty, people will still cast their votes in secret for the man so clearly better suited to run this country regardless of the color of his skin.

Think of the message that will send to your towns, cities, states, regions… It’s hard to make a stand when you’re just one person living amongst those against you, but we implore you, you’re not alone. Looking back through history, there are always the good ones amongst the bad. Today this country is screaming to get over it’s obsession with race, make it happen.

Furthermore, I’d hope that all of the normally rational, intelligent folks out there who might have caught themselves buying into the racist hype, forwarding along e-mails, cell phone msgs… whatever. After all is said and done, you’ll take a look back at the ignorance you have replicated, and for only one second be ashamed. Then go to http://www.thatone08.com and realize that you’ve already been forgiven.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Make sure to follow on Twitter! Comments/love can be sent here. Thanks for reading!