After Obama was elected President of the United States, I wrote:
If there is one thing this election showed, it is that the view that a Black person cannot be president, that racism continues to play a significant role in todays economy, was flat out wrong. Personally, I never doubted that a Black man can become president but many people I know did. An Obama presidency proved they were wrong and will be a strong argument against anybody who continues to believe that race plays a significant role in limiting minority upward mobility. How his presidency will affect the Black community is something to watch.
With Obama’s first year behind us, it seems to be going just as I had hoped:
Despite the bad economy, blacks’ assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a comprehensive new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race.
For the full press release by the Pew Research Center go here.
I really, really, really detest this line of reasoning. Having a black President does not by a long shot prove that “race [does not] play a significant role in limiting minority upward mobility.”
Obama’s victory is certainly a nice step in the right, post-racial direction, but the much, much more likely explanation for it is that people were sick of the Republican Party’s shenanigans, sick of the wars, and upset by the economic meltdown. In fact, they were so sick and so upset that even a black guy could win!
Remind me again, how many African-American Senators are there?
Let’s do a thought experiment:
Maybe it’s semantics we disagree on. Let me try to explain it in a different way.
What are the chances that someone like Obama, even with the Republican party in the same circumstances behind them, would have won the presidency say 50 years ago? I think we can agree that it is very low, even zero.
Yet many people do not realize that we are in a very different world. I told people, over and over again, that Obama can win - many people thought I was nuts. They said, repeatedly, that a black man can never be president of the United States. “were not ready”, they assured me.
Take this statement by Gerry Vázquez:
He just couldn’t believe that a black man really can become president.
Obama proves that people like Gerry Vazquez have outdated views on America’s progress. It’s a stark reminder on the very real progress we have made.
Personally, I believe that race is not even in the top 10 of impediments to minority progress. The private industry has long ago embraced minorities, with blacks at the CEO levels of several prominent companies (one of the many reasons why I prefer the private sector to the political sector - political sector is zero sum, so it takes a lot longer for real progress…even Compton politics is still dominated by black politicians even though the city is more than 50% latino).
But atleast we can agree that the Obama presidency proves that there has been significant race progress?
Things we can agree on:
1. Those who said Obama could not win because he was black were wrong.
2. A black President is an indicator of progress in race relations.
3. Huge progress has been made in the last 50 years.
Things I will continue to strongly disagree with you on:
1. Race (or gender) is not a significant impediment to minority progress.
2. The election of Obama shows that racism has been largely eliminated in the U.S.
Things that make me hopping mad:
1. When thinly-veiled bigots (e.g. Pat Buchanan), who did everything they could to keep a black man from being President, now want to make the arguments above.
What Barack Obama is really all about was the dominance of the left wing on the internet.
To me it’s irrelevant the color of a person, but with Obamas Ideology it will put a death nail to the dominance of the left wing in respect to the internet.
But to stay on topic; did I think that Barack Obama would win? No