When Barack Obama was elected President, a lot of commentators and members of the general public said things about how racism was over now, that it was obvious that the U.S. had overcome the legacy of slavery and racism, etc.
Well let me tell you, from where I stand, the country isn't looking very post-racial to me.
- When a camp of Black kids is kicked out of a private swimming club for changing the "complexion" of the club, and commenters on the original news story use racist language and imagery to explain why the club isn't racist, hearkening back to the idea that POC contaminate white spaces;
- When we actually have a commentator on a national news program decrying the fact that Americans marry people of other ethnicities, and calling them separate "species";
- When a modern list of children's classics can include no works by or about people of color (and almost no female protagonists or authors, for that matter);
- When we see race and race-related class issues creeping into the supposedly colorblind world of online networking, in both covert and overt ways;
- When baseless accusations about vote fraud by undocumented immigrants are still being levied;
- When the best female tennis players in the world get relegated to the back courts because they aren't "pretty" (read, white) enough;
- When a Republican Congressman can vote against acknowledging the work that slaves did in building the Capitol he works in;
- When a mother can have her child taken from her simply because she speaks a foreign language;
Then I do not want to hear from anybody (that's right, Morgan Freeman, even you), about how we're all living in a happy free-to-be-you-and-me post-racial world.
Instead, why don't we take a moment to acknowledge the insidious racism that still pervades our society, and start calling people on their racism. Some of the links above include information on taking action to protest these racist acts, please take a few minutes to make a call, or send a fax, to stand up and say this is not ok.
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