I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what post-racism is. I think it’s the idea that white people don’t want to feel bad about slavery anymore, and we’ve decided that everything’s even now, even though there is clearly a huge racial disparity problem. Or maybe it’s something white people made up so that we can feel like we are the new victims of a new kind of anti-white racism. According to Wikipedia, Post-Racial America is the idea that now that we have a black president, we can feel like racism is over.
That idea doesn’t correspond with what actually happened, which is that having a black president woke up a latent part of America that is deeply racist. They had gotten comfy in their beliefs, and having a black president made them realize their era of power and control over others might be ending. That is basically what the Tea Party is, right? This uprising, which naturally merged with staunch evangelical Christianity, isn’t just about race – it’s about preserving traditional power structures. As these forces geared up to get the black president out of the office, they also started trying to put women in their place as well. America historically has been a white, straight man’s country, and they want to keep it that way.
As a woman, it’s terrifying to think that the government could put forces into play that give me no choice about whether or not I want to be a mother. But while it is a hard time to be female in this country, we are making it really a hard time to be black. The Trayvon Martin case basically says this about what it means to be black in this country:
1. You can get murdered for no reason other than being black.
2. This can happen and the person who murdered you might not even get arrested.
3. After you have been murdered, people will call you a thug.
4. People will feel so comfortable with your murder that states actually consider putting laws into place that make it easier for white people to get away with murdering black people all over the country.
Basically it says America is still racist, maybe even more racist than we ever comprehended. And that’s not just an inconvenient fact. “Oh dang, embarrassing!” For people who aren’t in power, it’s a fact that can literally mean life or death.
Part of the problem is that we don’t allow people to really talk about racism. If minorities do, we demand it be a song and dance. Make it a funny comedy routine that we can laugh about over a bowl of popcorn with our kids. Dress in costumes. Be self-deprecating! If they’re serious about it, we think it’s a drag, we get mad, we resent it. But that needs to end. Yeah it may make you feel awkward to talk about race non-ironically, non-jokingly, but that awkwardness is not pain, or fear or powerlessness. We have to start somewhere, or else things are going to get a whole lot worse.
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