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Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
Racial Hope Fades Despite Obama
By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services
In my favorite "Star Trek" episode, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew
of the starship Enterprise encountered humanoids from a planet
embroiled in war over an issue as clear as black and white. Literally.
The planet Cheron is locked in a race war. This astonishes earthlings. To us, all Cheronians look alike. Their skin is evenly divided, half-black and half-white, down the middle of their faces and bodies.
A perplexed Captain Kirk asks, what is the difference that Cheronians are fighting about? "Isn't it obvious?" says a Cheronian who is white on his left side, "All of his people are white on the RIGHT side."
The episode, like all good fiction, helps us come to grips with painful realities. It first aired in 1969, a time when our country's racial differences were erupting in riots and assassinations. The black-white planet was doomed by its inhabitants' inability to deal even with the slightest diversity. Could we earthlings do better?
Flash forward 40 years. That old Star Trek episode came to mind as I read the latest Gallup Poll on the state of the nation's racial optimism. A year after two-thirds of Americans polled expressed high hopes for a post-racial future, Gallup says, "there is scarcely more hope" for a solution on race than there was before.
If so, I am not surprised. In fact, I am somewhat relieved that we Americans are showing ourselves to be optimistic but also realistic. We know one election is not going to solve our racial challenges. We still have hope. We have only raised our standards for how we define our long-sought "solution."
Since 1963, Gallup has been asking Americans whether we think relations between blacks and whites "will always be a problem for the United States, or that a solution will eventually be worked out." The optimistic view that a solution will be worked out surged to an all-time high of 67 percent the day after Obama's election, but a year later only 56 percent express that belief. That's statistically the same as the 55 percent who felt that way back in December 1963 , when Gallup first asked the question.
"In short, despite all that has happened in the intervening decades," says Gallup, "there is scarcely more hope now than there was those many years ago that the nation's race-relations situation will be solved."
But Gallup should not sound so gloomy. The Americans in their survey are being realistic. Americans might want to be post-racial, but I think we also know in our heart of hearts that we're not ready yet.
After all, it was not that long ago that Gallup found our racial optimism at an all-time low of 29 percent. That was in October 1995 , shortly after O.J. Simpson's acquittal of double murder dramatically revealed the nation's racial divide on national television. Seldom has our state of race looked so bleak. Yet, Tiger Woods was becoming a new cultural hero across racial lines, Oprah Winfrey already was, and Colin Powell was seriously being urged by high-powered fans in both parties to run for president. Change was in the air. Hope was being kept alive.
It is a sign of our progress that racism has been driven underground, if not eliminated. But racial suspicions rise to fill the gap. For example, it is hard for me to read about church pastors like the Rev. Wiley Drake of Buena Park, Calif., or Pastor Steven Anderson of Tempe, Ariz. -- who have proudly prayed for Obama to die soon -- and not wonder how much race might be a motivating factor in their prayers.
But race is such a touchy topic these days that you can be accused of being a racist just for bringing it up. Obama's thoughts on racial profiling led Fox News star Glenn Beck to call the president "a racist" who "hates white culture." When Katie Couric later asked him, "What is 'white culture'?" Beck looked surprised. He accused Couric of trying to "trap" him and refused to answer. That's too bad. I, too, would like to know what he means by "white culture." By understanding my differences with people who come from other cultures, I hope to gain a better understanding of what I have in common with them -- even with Glenn Beck.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.
(c) 2008 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
This news arrived on: 11/04/2009
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Posted Comments:
11-04-2009 22:30
JCE wrote:
Excellent article. But how can you expect the things like racism to change, when the people won't vote, and when they do, they buy into the special interests propaganda, and continue to vote partisan, and fight the other partys every effort to do good, which is precious little enough as it is. And God forbid if a party does any good. Then next one has changing it as a top priority. People either get it, or they don't, and most don't seem to. They keep doing the same thing over, expecting it to change.
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