I often have the problem of hearing or reading something fairly profound and then proceeding to forget the source. This can become a problem when I want to discuss it elsewhere. However, this is just a blog that I'm fairly sure no one reads anymore, and not an academic paper in need of quotes and citations, so I'm going to run with this while I wait for my second registry scan to finish.

Someone...I don't remember who this was... it could have been Bill Fletcher at the Progressive Forum last week, or Cornell West when he was on the Colbert Report (after a few moments of reflection, I'm fairly sure he's who I'm thinking of), or some editorial type post on kos or what, articulated his worry that if Barack Obama is elected president, people would begin feeling that racism was over, simply because a man with some Black ancestry was able to make it into the White House, making it that much more difficult to to have issues of systemic, institutionalized and internalized racism addressed and discussed in an open manner.

When I heard him say this, my first reaction was that while he was probably being a bit pessimistic, recent conversations I've had with classmates regarding Obama, and discussions that happened during the progressive debates last week have lead me to believe that Mr. West is absolutely right, and that further work is needed in bringing the race issue into the national conversation. This classmate feels that if Obama wins, it proves that racism is gone from America, and that we will be able to point to him as a role model to children and simply say "He did it, that means you could do it too." This (and I mean nothing against this classmate by writing this) is one that has casually used derogatory terms for Hispanics in conversation, and then excused herself for it when she saw the look on my face, by saying that it was ok for her to say these things because the father of her child is Hispanic.

Coming from the part of California that I do...San Francisco, a PC bubble where it is very possible to make your way around for sixteen years without hearing something come out of someone's mouth that you could positively identify as inadvertently expressed racism, I've still not built up the callouses that would perhaps make comments such as this as shocking to me.

This most recent incident, as well as another that happened to me last year, have weighed heavily on my mind ever since I watched West and Colbert bantering during the last 13-15 minutes of that show earlier in the week.

Is such a national conversation about this sort of racism possible? How do these conversations occur? Are the prejudices from past generations ever going to fully dissipate? Questions I wish I could answer but alas...

Older Stuff:
Ponderings while waiting for the registery check to finish - October 16, 2008
i'm a chargin mah laz0rz. - September 30, 2008
the summertime blues - June 21, 2008
my life so far - March 22, 2008
empty pockets - February 19, 2008

don't be afraid of the future. it doesn't include you, it only removes you.

It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from his government."
- Thomas Payne