Last week’s raging national controversy over the firing of Shirley Sherrod, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Director of Rural Development in Georgia, over alleged racism, has extended focus on the issue of racism on the heels of the NAACP/ Tea Party controversy.

In what was proved to be a rush to judgment, Mrs. Sherrod was fired because she was wrongly accused of making a racist speech at a NAACP meeting in March, when she made reference to work she did on behalf of a White farmer some 24 years ago. Within hours after being fired by the Secretary of Agriculture, it was discovered that the version of the speech leading to Mrs. Sherrod dismissal was craftily edited to make her seem to be making racist comments, which was not the case. This resulted in members of the Obama administration, including the president, apologizing to Mrs. Sherrod who has been offered a new job in the DOA.

One cannot blame some cynics for thinking that the timing of the racial issues that have enveloped national headlines has been purposely designed by extreme right wing elements in the country.

During Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, the racial storm involving his pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright peaked after Obama had won successive primaries and it was obvious that he was a serious contender for the presidency. The storm over Wright’s blustering speech against the American establishment forced Obama off his campaign message and almost derailed his campaign.

Almost a year ago, during the heat of the healthcare debate, coinciding with President Obama’s speech supporting the reforms, questionable police actions in Boston against Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., commanded national headlines for days, virtually eclipsing reports of the president’s speech.

Now, only a relative few Americans may be cognizant that the most historic financial regulatory law since the Great Depression was signed by the president last week. This signing coincided, unfortunately, with the peak of the controversy over Sherrod’s firing, and largely obliterated news of the financial regulatory law.

It certainly appears that racism is being used by opponents of the current administration in Washington as a strategy to knock it off message. It is becoming sad that the administration of President Obama is one where race is used as a scare tactic to harass the government and the first Black president himself. His opponents are just foaming at the mouth to pull him into the racism trap and accuse him of being a racist.

The fact is America is and will always be a country of diverse races. However, it is difficult for the various races to life harmoniously because the history of racial abuse has been left hanging without meaningful resolution.

The history dictates that White settlers of America almost completely eradicated the indigenous Native American population they found here. Then White men brought captured Africans to America, forced them into slavery on plantations, and blatantly opposed the freedom granted to these Black slaves, and strived, especially in the South to perpetuate forced bondage. When the yoke of slavery was cast off, segregation, another form of bondage, was enforced on Blacks. Segregation also created a psychological bondage that made some Blacks believe that they couldn’t advance in society, and some Whites deliberately setting out to enforce this belief. When the more ambitious Blacks broke this mold and advanced in several areas of American society, it shocked the White dominated society. Certainly, a Black man being elected as the nation’s president shocked unrelenting White racists, and even surprised Blacks bounded by the belief they could never succeed.

As Blacks advanced in the society, fear was used as a means of separating the races. Blacks were maligned as the angry race from which violent crime, and general anti-social behavior, emanated. In several areas of the society Whites, and other races, harbored a fear for Blacks. On the other hand, Blacks, to some extent, were socialized to fear and be suspicious of White folks, believing the latter would never accept then as their equal even when they extended the olive branch to Blacks.

From the 17th century until today, there has been this racial dispute between Black and White, often obliterating disputes among other races. This history of racism lingers above the country like a ghost that perpetually haunts the country, taunting the post-racist America imagined with the results of the 2008 presidential elections.

Despite the haunting of history, some Americans pretend “All is well among the races.” Well that’s a lie. There must be up-front, continuous discussions and debate about racism. The problems must be faced and dealt with. Solutions must be sought. Racism isn’t a problem to hide from because it still remains within the society. Unless serious, frank, public conversations are held, crafty individuals will continue using racism as the wedge to destroy not only this current American presidency, but the entire country, and, worse, risk returning it to the brutal racial history of the past. This cannot be allowed.