filed under Election 2008
Tim Wise has some words.
3:25PM ON
11/06/2008
BY
Heather Vail
“If you are incapable of mustering pride in this moment, and if you cannot appreciate how meaningful this day is for millions of black folks who stood in lines for up to seven hours to vote, then your cynicism has become such an encumbrance as to render you all but useless to the liberation movement.”
Good, and Now Back to Work: Avoiding Both Cynicism and Overconfidence in the Age of Obama.
Worth reading, I think.
November 6th, 2008 at 5:36PM
mangeek Says:
Am I the -only- one who thinks that a black president isn’t a big deal?
I could have told you ten years ago that we were ‘ready and willing’ to elect a black president, and we were, we just didn’t have a good candidate, and the likelihood of a minority president would be low because there are a -lot- of old white guys in politics.
I’m not saying history wasn’t made, it certainly was, but I think this is proof that we’re already -far beyond- systemic widespread racism as a country. We didn’t strike a blow to racism, we had a normal experience in a country where racism is no longer a deciding or important factor.
Racism is (and has been) dead, as far as a major social issue. The real issues we should be focusing on right now (especially now that we have a -rare- all-left government) is class divides and poverty.
Also, now that we’re not a racist country (though we will always have some racist people), can we stop busing kids all over to go to school? The neighborhoods are integrated enough these days to allow everyone to walk to school -and- get enough cross-race interaction before they get all mentally developed.
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