Posted by
Pete Chase on Friday, November 14, 2008 7:00:00 AM
Last Wednesday morning, America awoke to a new sight. For the first time, the sun rose over a nation which had shed the specter of its racist past. November 5 was to be remembered as the day when Dr. King’s dream was finally realized.
Before work I sat down in front of the television with a bowl of cereal and turned to C-SPAN. A caller was giving his thoughts on those who hadn’t voted for Barack Obama:
these people . . . know that he’s not a Marxist, they’re just using these words as code words. They would like to use the big N-word, but they don’t have the guts to, they don’t have the conviction of their forefathers, so they use the cowardly way to do it, by using code words. But . . . I got a news flash for all you racists out there, this country’s not going back to the Jim Crow days, it’s not going back to slavery, so you may as well get over it . . . I’ve known rats with more integrity, more humanity in their little small body then you have in your entire soul.
Well. So much for post-racial harmony.
During the campaign, it was close to impossible to attack Obama without attracting charges of racism. Radical? Socialist? Code words for black. Elitist? Presumptious? Codes words for uppity black. And how many insipid op-eds were we forced to endure charging that the only plausible reason for not supporting The One was racism?
Even white Obama supporters didn’t come away unscathed. A terrific piece by Shelby Steele in the L.A. Times points out the irony of voting for the post-racial candidate:
When whites – especially today's younger generation – proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation.
We haven’t defeated racism, we’ve internalized it. It seems like every word we say and every choice we make is vetted by our internal Ministry of Diversity. Do these jeans make me look racist? Such a strange thing that at the very hour of what should rightly be regarded as the triumph of the American ideal that all men are created equal we should engage in this sort of self-flagellation. Out, damn'd spot! out, I say! – Congratulations, fellow Americans. We have truly institutionalized racism in America.
It reminds me of a 1980 movie gem called Serial about the ridiculously self-aware progressivism of California’s Marin County. Local sex fiend Carol, stung by her friend Kate for spreading damaging – to her hair, anyway – gossip, sets about reinventing herself. The exchange between the two when Carol comes out to her as a lesbian is gold:
Kate: You know, Carol, gay or straight, you still have that certain something . . . you’re a c***.
Carol (confused): Still?
Kate: Work on it.
So to all those who voted for Obama as proof of their post-racial bona fides, well . . . as the lady said: work on it.