D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat. Her column is published here each Tuesday. Opinions expressed are solely her own.

Did you hear about the Georgia math teacher who gave her students a quiz with word problems involving slavery and beatings?

Gwinnett County third-grade students were asked to calculate math problems, asking how many beatings Frederick Douglass would get, how much cotton Frederick picked and how many oranges a slave could pick.

Parents are outraged and the school system has launched an investigation into the matter. The Georgia branch of the NAACP is calling for the teacher’s termination.

Though one teacher wrote all of the questions for the homework assignment, it is alleged that all nine of the third grade teachers saw them before they were given out to the students.

What is going on in this country that people are finding it so easy to attempt to insult and demean African Americans?

Just last week Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum singled out blacks, suggesting that under his administration he won’t "make blacks lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."

Then there was Republican presidential rival Newt Gingrich who, referring to black teenage unemployment, suggested that black children should serve as janitors, mopping school floors. "What if they had money of their own and didn't have to become a pimp, prostitute or drug dealer?"

Racists, led by Tea Party and right-wing racists, have declared open season on African American morale and dignity. Gone is the day when most Americans tried to be, at minimum, politically correct. American racists have thrown off their plastic cloaks of political correctness and openly spew their poisonous opinions without fear of censure.

Some suggest that the poor economy is the reason for the rise in racist sentiments. Others believe the cause is the election of the nation’s first African American president.

I believe that both the economy and the election of President Obama have helped fuel smoldering racists fires. I also believe that racism is a viral plague that is never fully eradicated. It is merely suppressed. Then it lies in wait for the opportunity to infect and re-infect — even some who thought they were immune.

So many of us believed that the civil rights movement was successful in annihilating the worst of racism. But like many other virulent diseases, unless carefully guarded, it emerges to again sicken society.

I believe we are in such a period when those of us who are well must fight against the sickness called racism by identifying it, isolating it and denying it the opportunity for growth.

We can do this with our voices and our votes. We can do it by refusing, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did, to become a carrier of the disease but by speaking truth to racism in our everyday lives.

It is tempting to retaliate against those who would seek to dehumanize and degrade us. We want to call names. We want to hit back.

I will answer the Georgia teacher, Gingrich and Santorum with a math quiz somewhat similar to the one given to the school children:

A. If  10,000 ignorant racists anger 300 million African Americans during election year, what do you get?

B. If nine incompetent teachers give racially insensitive quizzes to innocent third graders, what do the teachers get?

C. If two Republican presidential candidates insult the dignity of one racial group what do they get?

 Answers: 

A: Barak Obama  

B: fired

C: defeated

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