11-07-2008, 01:05 AM
Quote:I wish that was the case over here. I wish they were commenting on his intelligence or saying that his leadership will bring us out of difficult times into prosperity or that he will smooth relations between the USA and the rest of the world. Instead, every commentary is on how wonderful it is that we have elected a black man and nothing about whether we have elected the best man. It makes me angry. Rather that demonstrate how far we have come, it shows how far we still have to go. The color of his skin should not have mattered. Women, Hispanics, Asians - what other groups do we still have to check off the list to show we have embraced equality? Elevating any group's status does nothing to assuage past inequities and just swings the pendulum which eventually swings back to the next. I have a dream... that nobody is ever judged by anything other than the person inside.
In a utopian world where injustice is quickly recognized and immediately purged from everyone's mind, sure, you'd be right. However, since the history of the US presidency is 43 consecutive white, straight, christian(-ish) men, I think it's probably fair to offer some measure of applause over race. Obama the first example to make substantial, rather than just theoretical, any progress against a pattern deeply associated with the worst historical blight on the US' record, the legacy of racial discrimination. It's all well and good to be high-minded and post-racial, but perhaps one might want to wait for at least one president from each historically excluded category (non-white ethnicities, women, gays, non-christian religions, atheists...) before you start lecturing people over it.
-Jester