All the talk about President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office, and hardly any about the "post-racial" America white folks were looking forward to. As far as I can tell, white folks are just acting screwy-er that usual, even if there is a noticable uptick in thier niceness. Doors get opened for me now. Some people call me "professor" or "mister," when I never got that before. Pre-Obama, I was just treated like any ole whatever, but post-Obama, I get treated like a New Negro—like an Obama Male — the prototype for a new generation of black men, as if I've just fallen to Earth. Have you noticed a difference in the way white people are treating you?
I think White people and Black people mean two different things when they dream of a post-racial America. White people dream of an America where Black people will no longer feel it neccesary to be black, strictly speaking, and whites don't have to worry about being "politically correct" or considerate of your sensitivities. They'll feel safe enough to have you over for dinner and be able to co-opt some of the more popular aspects of black culture without fear of criticism and dispose of it blithely with no sense of guilt or irony. I think that's what some whites mean when they say "post-racial."
Most Black people have been black long enough to know that "post-racial" is a media-manufactured term that has no meaning whatsoever. None. It's part an parcel of Obamania and the cult of personality he mass-marketed. Race is a color caste system hundreds of years in the making and no one person, no matter how charismatic, can dismantle it. We can all grow up a little, but one man can't make that change. "Yes We Can?"
Naw, brother. Naw, you caint.
Black people and white people are genetically alike, but culturally different. It is that difference that makes us great. It is the difference that scares some. But what do you think?
100 Days on, and do you see any sign of the "post-racial America?"
Single Father, Author, Screenwriter, Award-Winning Journalist, NPR Moderator, Lecturer and College Professor. Habitual Line-Stepper