I'm thrilled that the mainstream press is finally covering the reality that race matters and that the Obama presidency (and the right-wing reactions to it) highlight the fact that race matters.
Race matters in America. As long as I can walk through the grocery store late at night without a security guard shadow and my colleague cannot, race matters. As long as I feel uncomfortable as a white person talking about race, and have to overcome that discomfort to do so, race matters. As long as a white man can assault a black woman in front of her daughter in a public place, and be released with a minor charge, race matters. As long as a white, well meaning policeman, can get into an altercation with tired black intellectual in the black man's own home about whether he should be there, race matters. As long as a black woman who, documented on video, does nothing to disturb a town hall, is hustled out of the town hall by police while a white man who tore up her sign and held up an offensive poster, remains in the meeting, race matters. As long as Glenn Beck can call a black president "racist"... Well, you get the idea.
I guess the question isn't "does race matter?", the question is, why aren't we talking about it?
Raina Kelley asks this question in a recent Newsweek piece
Rush Limbaugh suggests we roll back the clock in a recent show
"Tea Party" leader using coded language (Muslim as a stand in for black) on CNN
Former President Carter tells it like it is on msnbc
Tim Wise has been speaking about this right along. Here's an interview on CNN
and a web site educating on prejudice Understanding Prejudice
