Higher Learning.

A "Post-Racial" Moment of Clarity.


Melting Pot.

Words.

"If a visitor from the first half of the 20th century were plunked down in America today, he'd find, among other things, that drinking fountains in the South are no longer segregated, black women in the workforce are no longer overwhelmingly maids and baby-sitters, and interracial marriage is no longer against the law as it was in 30 states in 1950. When he figured out how to use a remote control and managed to get his TV tuned to CNN and saw the ubiquitous image of the country's new president, he'd no doubt collapse in shock.

The United States has undergone a profound and remarkable transformation -- but what exactly does it mean? To some Americans, it means that today, 145 years after the abolition of slavery, we can finally check race relations off the list and move our focus to the other pressing problems that face the country. Others say that's ridiculous and that, Obama or no Obama, the work of creating a truly egalitarian, nondiscriminatory society remains far from finished.

...As many conservatives see it, we're living in a chastened, post-racial America in which discrimination has been largely dismantled, Jim Crow is dead and gaps are being narrowed. With a growing black and Latino middle class -- not to mention a "beiging" of America thanks to intermarriage -- it's time to end our obsession with righting the wrongs of the past. More specifically, we should do away with morally troublesome policies such as affirmative action, minority set-asides and "pre-clearance" that aid minority groups at the expense of the majority, and revert, instead, to the sounder principle of colorblind justice for all.

Are they right? This page agrees that race-conscious policies such as affirmative action should be temporary -- existing only until they are no longer necessary because society's inequities have been addressed. But it is naive to think we have arrived at that moment. Despite the enormously significant changes since the civil rights movement, the simple fact is that the great American race problem has not been resolved. To be sure, it's different today than it was when 14-year-old Emmett Till was beaten, shot and thrown into the Tallahatchie River for whistling at a white woman in 1955, or when Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were murdered by the Klan in 1964 for trying to register black voters in Mississippi. That doesn't mean it's gone."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: In the struggle against racism, we haven't overcome yet