As I’ve said before, something weird is happening in the world of American race relations, and it’s only going to get weirder if Obama gets elected.
I was gratified to see a black man agree with me (without knowing it) over at The Assimilated Negro. In this post about a white boy who has etched a racial epithet into his skin and is worried about scoring with the brown ladies, TAN noted, “What’s done is done, but if he was just considering the tattoo I would tell him to wait and see if Obama gets elected. If Obama is in, there will be a lot more leeway and tolerance for ignorant ish like that.”
Yup. An Obama presidency would definitely shift the balance of racial tolerance, if not the actual power balance. But maybe the power balance is shifting too. You know something is topsy turvy when The Root is defending Don Imus against the race police. Mr. Izrael is a foward thinker, observing, “But if Imus can’t order a cup of coffee—black—without a special dispensation, without the need of some kind of interpreter or co-signer, then soon he’ll be out of business, along with a lot of other folks. Black folks. Because when you start trying to censor other people, you’re next.”
Despite the title of this, I’m not actually suggesting that any of this constitutes an end to racism, but they could be signs that this country is finally going to have to face race relations head on, in the open, without euphemistic cover.
