Post-Race (Race Post?)

One of the benefits of the newfangled digital universe is that information can be transferred almost in real time via things such as, you know, blogs. In that spirit, I'm going to address a speech that Barack Obama gave a month ago. It's a brave new world, folks, and in this corner of it, we apparently move even slower than print magazines.

The speech I'm referring to, of course, is the 45-minute sermon about race in America that Obama delivered in Philadelphia, the text of which you can read here. If you want to skip to the most vital chunks, the ones that got the most play in the media, go here for a sample. The most-repeated paragraph is in the fourth section of that page, where Obama says he could not disown his pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, for Wright's racially inflammatory remarks, any more than he could disown his white grandmother for her fear of young black men. 

It was a brave speech, to be sure. Wright's comments (among others, that 9/11 was a case of the "chickens coming home to roost" and calling America the "USKKK") were damaging to Obama, but he could have easily shunned the pastor in public, then hope that the issue died quietly. Instead, Obama addressed the matter head-on in a speech that many pundits have placed alongside the best work of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in the pantheon of great oratory.

The most artful element of the speech was its emphasis on forgiveness. Obama managed to forgive black Americans for their ongoing anger at "white America," reminding us that it stemmed from centuries of varying degrees of discrimination. Even super-conservative former Republican candidate Mike Huckabee was impressed by this argument. In fact, Huckabee added to it (about 5:55 on the linked video).

But Obama also - more critically, for his presidential aspirations - forgave white Americans for their fear and distrust of young black men. For decades discussions of race have been characterized by knee-jerk outrage on both sides. While this outrage has served some purpose, helping to move the needle on some critical racial issues, it has also frozen many people out of the conversation. Namely, white people who can't reconcile their liberal intellectual views with their visceral fear of black people. The genius of Obama's speech was that he told these people that their having these fears did not necessarily make them raving racists. He invited them back into a discussion that they had been shamed out of. 

I am not trying to cast white Americans as the victims, merely saying that Obama was wise to acknowledge their fears. He needs white voters, and he needs to convince them that the first black president will not be driven by the desire to "even the score" on behalf of the black community. It's a political and mathematical reality.

But the idea of victimhood is a curious one. Canvas a group of more openly racist whites and you will likely encounter the belief, on their part, that they are indeed the victims. Victims of affirmative action, victims of liberals who make them feel bad for their opposition to it, and so on. From their perch, this sort of white person sees all kinds of benefits to being a visible minority, of being an "oppressed victim," and wants a piece of the action. Thus, we have clowns like this, who think being a white, Christian male is the lousiest gig in America.

The victim mentality, while it has become more and more fashionable, is dangerous - all the more so for those who have more legitimate claim to it. Black people in North America, for example, must struggle not only against actual racism, but also against a culture that perpetually reflects their own victim status back at them. This notion of inevitable victimhood, this sense that struggling against an inherently racist society is ultimately pointless, suspends a lot of black youth in a state of hopelessness and stalls progress toward a racially egalitarian society. It's a vicious cycle - a black man can rightfully claim to be a victim of racism, but his acquiescence to the victim mindset dooms him to a second-class existence.

Easy enough for me to say as a white man, of course. Harder, though, for Obama, who must hang on to black voters while courting white ones. What he has suggested, though, is that both sides move acknowledge the outrage while moving past it, that whites and blacks and all other shades take responsibility for crimes past and present and collaborate on a future of greater understanding between racial groups. Naively utopian, sure, but also daring - Obama has dared Americans to act like grown-ups. Now it's on the people to prove themselves worthy of that respect.

But won't somebody please think of the children? 

Okay, then. And for bonus points, let's talk about Canadian children. Earlier this year, the Toronto District School Board voted to approve black-focused schools. This is a troubling decision. On the one hand, it is evident that public schools are doing an inadequate job of teaching black children, and that these children may indeed benefit from an education more attuned to their specific needs. But by sending children to an Afro-centric school, are not parents underlining the point for these kids that they are "different?" Or worse, suggesting that they are less capable than those who go to a "regular" school? The question is not how the parents see it, but how the children see it. I can't pretend to know the answer.

That any ethnic group would voluntary choose this kind of segregation indicates the abject failure of the public school system to adapt to the new realities of Canada, to evolve out of the Euro-centric basis of our education system and into one that better reflects our country. But segregated schools only let existing public schools off the hook. If a black child can attend a "black" school, where is the incentive for the public school system to become more inclusive?

Canada is hardly immune to racial inequities, although we often like to think so. And while Obama's speech offered sound suggestions about proceeding toward a truly equal, "post-racial" society, it has never been and will never be easy. In Canada and the U.S., race is the elephant that everyone wants to boot out of the room. But it keeps stomping back in.