With Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first African-American president on November 4, it’s easy to think that we’ve finally reached the “post-racial” era in our history. After all, how can African-Americans claim racism, with one of their own in the most powerful position in the world?
Here’s my opinion: Obama’s election was–no question–a great and historic step in our country moving past racism. But it was only one step. Obama was able to successfully portray himself as being about more than just his racial identity, which is what made him palatable to more Americans than would have been the case had he been seen marching in protests, playing the role of the Angry Black Man.
There was a pro-Obama email I received before the election that, as a mental exercise, asked me to switch aspects of the candidates’ lives to the other candidate to see if I could still imagine that candidate being viable. Doing this little mental exercise really jarred me, because I could feel the twinges of racist attitudes deep down inside me that I had to acknowledge. The points that hit me the hardest were imagining Obama with a pregnant teenage daughter (that Sarah Palin has) and a wife with a history of drug addiction (that Cindy McCain has).
My point here is not to say that John McCain or Sarah Palin were bad candidates. But I think we have to acknowledge that what ended up being minor unpleasantness for their campaign, would have been positively fatal for Obama’s. As a white person, I could feel even in myself how much easier it is to view these issues as being “indiscretions” or “problems we all have to face” when it was McCain or Palin involved. But a black man running for President of the United States with a pregnant teenager at home and a drug-addict wife? I had a hard time imagining that.
And that’s racism.
What do you think? Do you think that Obama’s election means that we have transcended race?
