Not Post Racial Yet

Since the election of the president, many commentators (mostly white) have been discussing a post racial America. Some claim that the fact we have elected a black man our president, racism no longer exists at a high level in this country and we are now a more color blind society. Bunk.

In a color blind society no one would even notice that the president was black. Find me one person in this country that does not recognize the president is black. The election of one man does not a color blind society make.

There would be no birther movement if Barack Obama was named Barry O'Malley or Barry Osterhaus. The birther movement has legs because the president had an African father and was born in the exotic place called Hawaii, as a child spent some time in Indonesia with his mother. John McCain was born in Panama but no one doubts his citizenship because his father was military and not a cultural anthropologist.

I don't have a problem with the teabagger movement on the whole. The true movement leaders care about where this nation is heading and are genuine anti-tax and small government advocates. The movement has been around for years and embodied by the Libertarian party and Congressman Ron Paul. After the election of Barack Obama the movement grew many fold and got a racial edge. Look back at photos from the biggest marches in April and you will find hundreds of posters taking the low road with ethnic and racial slurs. Where were these new teabaggers when the Bush administration ran up a national debt larger than all the 43 Presidents before him?

Do I think we can become a post racial society? Yes. It is going to take a lot more intermarriage and it is going to take a few more generations. Have we gotten better? Maybe. I have had conversations with people in their early twenties. These kids were not as moved as I was by the election of an African American President, they didn't really get the sense of history at the same level I had. These kids also don't get the whole gays can't marry thing either.

So, yes there is hope for this society to become colorblind, I just don't think I will be alive to see it.

What happened this week the Dr. Henry Louis Gates should end any claims of a post racial society for quite some time.