After the protest in Washington DC on 912, my wife and I went to Ford Theater and had a chance to revisit this symbol of racism's ability to survive and infect our national consciousness, even at  the moment of its greatest defeat. For Lincoln, the question of abolition was clearly not the main issue of the war, but Frederick Douglas clearly made him see its importance by doing the one thing a person can do that cannot be disputed or twisted by those with sane minds and any whisper of charity in their hearts. He offered his people to serve the country. He demanded that Lincoln acknowledge the cost, and the debt of their blood, owed those soldiers by the Union and then the whole country. That intemperate, impassioned and probably self-justified man, who shot the President, ruined our chance to see if Lincoln would have passed that test of his integrity and honored that debt.

President Obama, I don't know what it is like to be black in America because I am not black. I don't know how much pain and self doubt came by way of race. But I do know that I and millions of white, latino, asian and native American people all came to realize the fundamental evil of prejudice, confronted their own and committed to ending prejudice and making the words of our founding fathers transcend their ideals and become a commitment in reality.

There was a time when I stood on the steps of the Nashville Courthouse and joined a lone lady who was protesting and shared the threats and insults of passers-by. Across the street is a school, Hume Fogg Technical High School. The kids were watching out a window and jeering. A black student leaned out the window and yelled "right on" before being pulled inside by other students punching him. A lone girl, frightened, stood flat against the glass with her arms over her so that no one inside the school could see that in the notch of her arm she made a hidden peace sign with her other hand to let us know she was with that lady and I on the courthouse steps. She happened to be white.

The lady on the steps thanked me for stopping and standing there with her and told me to get out of town before dark, that the threats I received from bystanders, I should not discount. She then laughed and said she knew her own way home. The fact that she was black was unimportant then and is unimportant now. So why do I mention it?

I don't know President Carter and he doesn't know me. Yet, I have listened as he and then Democrats in Congress and members of your party have described my motivations and the motivations of fellow tea-party protesters as racist. President Carter clearly stated that those engaged in protest against your policies, and I am one of them, were doing so because of a deep seated assumption that you are incapable, or unfit in some way to be President because of your race. I want you to know on my personal oath, on everything I have ever stood for that this is untrue. I do not think you are incapable or unfit to be President because of your race. My opinion is that you are not only one of the brightest and most charismatic Presidents we have ever had, but I think you know exactly what you are doing and are capable of achieving it if we who disagree are unable to win the discussion.

What I have heard about your community activism reminds me of myself in college. I used to stand in the doorways of supermarkets and ask people not to buy grapes. Millions of Americans of all races helped Cesar Chavez support a strike started by a union populated mostly by immigrants from the Philippines. As a guy named Kenny Denman said to me once, "after the protest you can cut your hair, put on different clothes and join the enemy, I can't." Yet, my most endearing memory from that period was working to get breakfasts donated and I heard a friend of mine say to another of his friends, "he a blue-eyed brother."

When I was in Europe, I came to understand what Kenny Denman said to me. I worked in defense and at a given moment was targeted. The last year I was there, there were 109 attacks on my person and workplace. I had to use a random clock to insure I never left a building at the same time or took the same route to anywhere. Even though I used extreme caution I was nearly killed and when I came home I was like a deer in headlights. Anyone on the street could be the next attacker. Maybe that's what it’s been like in your experience. If we do share that experience, I experienced my part protecting you and all Americans.

So Mr. Carter's words were a torture to me in their cruel intent to use something as horrible as racism as a way to demean an opponent or express a vast disdain for and underestimation of the American people. I don't believe your approach to solving our problems is the one I want for our country. But I am delighted that our country has proved it is colorblind when it counts. Yet, your administration may go down in history as the one that re-divided the country on race. Not because of you, but because your own political party and its supporters are willing to use race as a weapon against your own people. And that's the point, President Obama, I am also one of your own people. I am an American. I don't deserve this any more than you do. But you can stop it in an instant if you will.

I am asking you to clearly and unequivocally tell your party to stop this use of race as an attack upon your opponents. There are just as many people that are opposed to your policies as there members of the Democratic Party that have passed the race test and offered their lives to create the opportunities, that you are the fulfillment of. It is just in the, numbers. A majority of all races and whites of both political colors in particular, have faced that test and passed. Your opponent in the election and those who voted for him did not vote against you because of race.
 
I know that people have big mouths. Heck, the Ford Theater is a monument to the verbal cruelty that Lincoln faced from about everyone except his friend, Frederick Douglas. To date, because I read a bill my Senators and House Leaders clearly had not and dared ask questions they didn't like, I have been vilified by Democratic leaders and called a Nazi, a domestic terrorist, a right wing extremist and a threat to our nation by Janet Napolitano in her DHS memo. I have a legal gun, support the second amendment and am a member of the NRA, I am Christian of Catholic denomination and support pro-life causes, I have served my country as a civilian, I have a flag that says "Don't Tread On Me" and I am a member of the tea-party movement. All of which she mentions are indicators of violent group memberships and advises local police to watch people like me because of our high likelihood of being domestic terrorists.

The reality is that I go to church in a mission that was founded in 1789 and paid for by the King of France. President Lincoln gave it back to the Catholic Church just before he died. Our local services are in Vietnamese, Spanish, Samoan and English. I take communion to patients in my local county hospital. I work with prisoners in the brig at Miramar MCAS. My wife, an RN, and I, a certified emergency responder, have volunteered to be Certified Emergency Response Team to help our neighbors and the world in times of disaster. It is not just Democrats or your supporters that are volunteers or help those with problems.

After 300 applications for work, I am still unemployed. So I've gone back to school at 60 so I can work until I'm 75. My wife is an RN at 67 and has a job. We take care of my 94 year old mother who also takes care of us. We grow fruit and food and next year hope to sell some, but the water rights of smelt and salmon have reduced our town's water supply by 25% and your stimulus bill is going to eliminate our only reservoir and turn the San Luis Rey River, dry since 1940, into a salmon run. From where I sit, what's going on in Washington must seem as stacked against the average guy, as crazy, as unfair and as unresponsive as society and government did to you in urban Chicago. But I don't see it that way because of racism.

My wife is afraid that if I post his letter someone supporting you will come to our door and kill us. Ms. Pelosi’s televised comments can be thanked for that. I said to my wife that I lived with never leaving home at the same time, never traveling the same route, never using streets with manhole covers, calling in every time I left somewhere and every time I arrived so they knew I was ok. I asked her, "Do you think that if I was willing to face that overseas for my country that I am unwilling to face that here?"

These are just words but they may create something new, an understanding or prevent a calamity; at least, that is my hope. Those who kill, like John Wilkes Booth, won't be stopped by words anyway. I then asked my wife, "Are you willing to face the risk of trying to stop this constant use of race to incite opposition to free speech?"  "Yes," she said. So I am posting this letter because I know I am not a racist and neither are you, and I do believe that our country is that important to you too. So please stop the political use of race by your party and its supporters before it does cause a calamity.

Signed,

Kenneth M.  Happel, Lynne C. Welke and Katherine K Happel

Reprinted from www.our-republic.net and the Canadian Free press