Post Racial?

There is much focus on race in the news lately; the shooting deaths of unarmed black men; the militarization of the Ferguson police in response to racial demonstration; lack of awards to black actors and directors and the Kanye West rant against a white musician winning over a black. Have we indeed progressed? I remember, following the Civil Rights movement there was an attempt in the media to downplay racial differences. Commercials would show blacks and whites in the same scenes pushing the same products. Children were being taught that all people are the same and differences in skin color are no different than the color of one’s hair. But that quickly changed. Advertising changed. Adds targeting a white demographic now no longer included black actors while other adds could be directed at exclusively black audiences. It’s not clear to me why or how, but within a decade political movements (Black Panthers, Black Muslims) emphasizing the racial difference while fighting for black power, gained strength. No more was the focus on “everyone is the same” but now the battle cry became “different but equal”. Of course the racists loved this preaching fostering a further separation of the races. They realized that wherever there is a declared difference, there cannot be equality. The more powerful segment, whether by virtue of numbers or resources, will always have the upper hand. Back in the early sixties I remember walking down a street in Washington DC. Strolling in front of me was a young, interracial couple obviously on a date. Over the course of a few blocks, several cars slowed down, rolled down their windows and yelled racial slurs at the white man. During the same period, fulfilling my military obligation, I was stationed in a small compound in Baltimore. Just outside the front gate was a bar. One night, returning to the base after a night out I stopped at the front desk to check in. Behind the desk was a black sargent who was speaking to a shaken light skinned young man who looked like he might have a bit of African blood. He was explaining to the sargent that he wanted to stop at the corner bar for a drink. The bouncer asked for his ID. He was 21 but the card indicated his race as Negro so he was refused entry. He was a well-educated northerner and was perplexed. He had never faced such overt discrimination and didn’t know how to respond. The sargent told him that this still happens down here and suggested he go to black neighborhood for a night out. So where are we now? Today I can go to an upscale restaurant even further south, in Charleston and as often as not see an interracial couple. In the same area we frequent a more modest restaurant and it is not uncommon to see small gathering of friends that include both black and white. There has been great progress. In part, it is due to our increased mobility, better education and the fading of the slave era propaganda claiming the racial inferiority of Negros to justify their enslavement. So when I hear complaints about the absence of black representation at entertainment awards or in the academies I have mixed emotions. On the one hand I think it is driven by discrimination whereas on the other I think we may have made more progress than I think and the reason there are not more blacks may be just that, on this occasion, there were not as many good performers and we were not pursuing the “different but equal” but the “everyone is the same” philosophy and seeing race no greater a differentiator than the color of hair. Or maybe I’m just blindly optimistic.