Barac Obama was on Nightline about his speech and has said that when discussing the issue of race infront of most of his white friends they were nervous about it with in comparance to his black friends being more into doing so. And that is one of the things that people are now examining. So that brings up a good question: Why are so many white people afraid and nervous abut discussing race? My only guess is some are probably embarrassed that most of this country's racism came from their people back then, and some could maybe be that they are racist themselves and don't want to be outed.
Because they know that white racism exists, and talking about it would be exposing the undeniable fact of white privilege.
You know what that could be very, very true. I believe all the reasons, but you know they would never say so.
You hit it on the head. Race is still the big elephant in the room and if the person is of African descent it is much bigger packaderm.
Racism exists... black people know it, white people know it. In fact, native people know it, asians know it and French Canadians know it. If you're different, people are less likely to trust you. If Barack Obama becomes President of the United States of America, racism won't go away. Racists will be waiting for his first failure to leap upon the chance to say "I told you so". His presidency will be held to extreme scrutiny by racist whites, eager for scandals and bad times to take the lustre from Obama's leadership. But I believe the number of whites who think this way is slowly shrinking. Not as quickly as anyone would like, but the times are changing nonetheless. Clearly there is a willingness to give Barack Obama a chance... he is inspiring enough white people to be a serious contender for the presidency, surely a sign of some sort of progress. Certainly Americans are tired of the same old politics and Barack Obama's refusal to sling mud like other politicians is refreshing... and that he is the best orator since John F Kennedy helps too. This is an important election for the USA... the damage that the Bush administration has done to the economy and America's standing in the world is unprecedented. The next president has a near impossible job to clean it up. I don't think Hillary Clinton or even John McCain could be any worse... but if America wants a real change in direction, Barack Obama is the only choice. Not necessarily based on policy, but based on perception. Perception from within to grow as a nation and perception in the world as a true leader on the world stage.
If Obama just have one term in office at least the people would had given him a chance. Has anyone seen the movie "The Man "starring James Earl Jones? It is based on a Irving Wallace book and the screenplay was written by Rod Serling.
