We Are Not Post Racial Just Yet

What a fantastic few days this has been. I am still on a natural high as John Denver would say. Now that President-Elect Obama has gloriously become President Obama we can finally turn our attention to the real work of getting this country back on track and into that famously promised "post racial America."

I, like most people, am realistic enough to know that President Obama cannot fix everything that is wrong with our economy and country. Sure there will be those who are looking for him to fail, waiting for those first missteps. But I think even they can't expect one man to fix in a few months or even a few years what has taken eight years to mess up. But I am indeed amazed at the number of people, in the media and that I know personally, who truly do expect America to be now and forever free of its ethnic, religious and racial differences. And this is not coming solely from White Americans who some might think are doing a bit of wishful thinking that minorities can now stop complaining about getting a fair shot. I have also come across some Black Americans who seem to believe that President Obama is going to make everything OK for everybody, or that all Black people's credit scores are now raised as one comedian joked... Doesn't Obama doesn't have enough on his shoulders?

But frankly I have to admit, I too used to think the success of one Black man (and I refer to him as Black since he himself chooses that descriptive) would mean that all Black people would rise with him, that when strangers looked at me from now on, they would think Obama and not Willie Horton or some other more recent negative association. I clearly remember the day after Obama's surprising win in the Iowa caucus, the win that caused most of us to believe that where we are today was possible, how when I was out in public I walked a bit taller, a bit prouder, feeling that everyone who saw me surely must be thinking positive thoughts about me and all Black people. After all, the Obamas proved that all of us were not bad, that some of us were even educated and people to be admired. But that feeling did not last long for me. As the campaign waged on and all the ugliness of the Jeremiah Wright affair, the rise of PUMA, the William Ayers mess, the Bill Clinton coded words after New Hampshire and in North Carolina, after all that, any notion that race was not going to play a factor in Obama's life, and mine as well, was washed away for the most part.

And still, like so many others, I couldn't help myself, there was still a bit of hope, of the belief that the oft-mentioned post-racial America Obama was supposed to usher in, was real. Is it real? Is it coming?

Well, I can definitely say that it is not here yet. But that doesn't mean that it's not on the way or that the inauguration of President Obama, and the multiracial coalition of people who helped him get to this day, are not signs that our nation is indeed moving on a path to that promised land. I do believe that we are undeniably closer to that ideal now than we have ever been in our country's history. And that is certainly worth celebrating.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Post racial we are not. Even President Obama has acknowledged that one man, one term of office, is not enough to change our history and the stain of race. The very fact that a whole new level of heated and passionate racial debate has arisen in the blogosphere related to whether Obama is America's first Black President or whether he is our first Mixed or Bi-Racial President is proof that race still matters to many people. To many the distinction is incredibly important, some believing the debate itself to be another example of those in the majority trying to take something away from Black people by denying that Obama is fully Black. But whatever one thinks about the debate, the fact that it is being waged is the key. And as I said before I have even encountered blacks who act like President Obama's swearing in and triumph means that they have the right to demand anything they want. I have seen examples of this on more than one occasion. The most recent involved a young Black man who was hawking his band's music CD to passersby on the street in downtown Burbank. When people, including me, wouldn't stop and heed his call to buy his CD, he actually invoked Obama to try to shame us into buying. He addressed me particularly, angrily actually, that times were different and Obama's election meant that I should feel obligated to support him as a sign of solidarity. The fact that he was being an ass or that I, and others passing, simply might not be interested in his music at that time weren't even considerations to him. All that mattered was his expectation that Obama's victory meant that we should all want to buy his album since he was, like Obama, Black.

It matters greatly that we now have, in The White House, a person and a family that has dark skin pigmentation, if only because it allow us to tell our kids that they too can be President some day and really mean it. We can now say America has indeed, at least in this case, in this ideal, lived up to its promise that anyone can ascend to the highest office. But incidents like the guy on the street and the recent police shootings of young black men in San Francisco, Houston and Philadelphia, are certainly proof that the mere existence of President Obama cannot lull us into believing that we have reached the pinnacle of racial progress in America. It is true that the only time we will surely know we have become post racial is when the election of a Black person, a Hispanic person, a Muslim, or a woman, is not really newsworthy by itself. Oh, do I look forward to that time.

But for now I am, like most of you, thrilled that we have at least gotten to where we are today, able to witness what we saw on Inauguration Day. We may not be post racial yet and Obama hasn't solved our economic crisis in his first days in office, but what we are witnessing every time we see him and Michelle and those darling girls actually living in The White House is a seismic shift that, at the very least, lets us know if we continue to work at it (and we all have to do our part as Obama said) that the America we want, that post racial America, will get here, and maybe even sooner than we expect.

Comments

[ohioan73]

As with any nation or country that has had one race exalted over another in its history, you have to expect that the underdog group is in some way going to feel proud but there is a feeling of smug vindication somewhere tucked in the backs of some people's minds. Most black people, I think, are gracious enough not to gloat because history (especially) is full of civil rights victories and we simply just moved forward after the party was over. However, there are always zealots here and there. They are not representative of the general warm feeling of solidarity with America that I personally feel right now. I never wanted to be black and special, just black and equal. I imagine most of us are getting our kicks right now on just being INCLUDED in America for a change. Next thing I'd like to see is Black history renamed as American history.

[jeanrenoir]

As a descendant of Georgia slave-owners who went to school with Taylor Branch in Atlanta and, like him, fervently supported King's efforts to achieve justice and equal opportunity for blacks in America, I cried like everyone else when Obama spoke today and Aretha sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee." As Obama has rightly said, for all the burdens of American history, there is no other country on earth where his story would have been possible. There is no ceiling whatsoever on black achievement or power in America today. Blacks have now risen to the top in every single field there is in this country. . The way forward for poor blacks is now the way forward for poor whites (or poor Native Americas or Asians). We should now call it the Cosby-Obama way: ie, sheer, unrelenting hard work in school. Poor black families, and poor white families, have only to imitate poor, immigrant Vietnamese families to lift their children out of poverty forever. The Vietnamese came to this country with nothing, often including no English. Yet simply by taking the effort to push their kids to study as hard as they could in American public schools, these Vietnamese often got their kids into Harvard (and without Affirmative Action, or any special favors not equally open to poor whites). The Vietnamese were "victims" of history. So what? They knew that only study and work would help their kids, not feeling self-pity.

[SethBLiNK]

We are not post racial. But what Barack Obama has shown us is what we can achieve if we could get past race.

By deciding that he was not only going to run for President, but run with the full intention of winning, and by leaving mostly to others to discuss the fact of his race, he showed himself to be past the petty squabbles of race that have hindered even those of us who strive to be past racism.

And, when he could no longer avoid the subject, and he addressed it, fully and intelligently, shocking us, as Jon Steward said, by speaking to the American electorate as if we were rational adults, acknowledging our collective shortcomings with compassion but also raising the bar for future discussions, our new President showed us where we could take the national conversation if we allowed ourselves to put our long perceived racial bickerings behind us.

No, we are not post racial, but he is, as much as any person who lives in the real world can be. And he is now in a position to lead by example. I'm very curious to see what America will look and sound and feel like in a few years.

[Jsens3]

If we aren't post-racial yet, we are rapidly moving that way. The old guard is dying off and for the later generations racial identity, sexual preference and religious affiliation (or no religious affiliation at all) are becoming non-issues of purely historical interest - if that. I'm pretty old. My grandmother (yes my grandmother) who was a devout Baptist and hard-nosed businesswoman raised in southern Illinois, believed to her dying day that the worst mistake the government ever made was to give women the right to vote! That seems ridiculous now. Old negative attitudes about race, sex and religion will suffer the same fate in the near future. For me, it is a matter of indifference whether Obama is black, half black, the son of a Muslim, or whatever other non-issues some may throw at him. I think many I know have the same attitude and that this progress is shown by the last election results. What really matters now is whether his administration can fulfill the promises made during the campaign.

[Earnest Harris - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree. In the end Obama will be judged mainly by what he accomplished during his term(s). But unfortunately I think "race" will play a factor in how some perceive his successes and failures. If he is not perceived as doing enough for Blacks some in the Black community will be very harsh on him. And likewise, if he seems to show what some may perceive to be too much attention to the Black community, some Whites will judge this harshly. He is in a tough spot. But I agree with you and the others posters above that Obama is ideally suited to handle this. And I also think our society, particularly the younger generations, are eager to get past these divisions, and they will indeed help usher in this post racial world we are looking for.