Copyright by John T. Reed

On 2/16/10, I saw a Charlie Rose show about whether America is now post-racial. Three black guys and a white New Yorker writer.

I’m white. Nevertheless, I think they got it wrong. Here is the correct answer.

We are post-racial in many aspects of American life. It happens by littles. Another bit of poetic phraseology that captures it is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s,

‘Tis not love’s going hurt my days,
But that it went in little ways.

I think the problem of America’s race hustlers

’Tis not racism’s going hurt my days
But that it went in little ways.

On February 7, 2010, more humans watched Super Bowl XLIV than had ever previously watched any TV program in the history of the universe. The losing coach was black. No one took any note of his race.

That is post racial.

Did that happen because of Barack Obama’s election? No. It happened because of Super Bowl XLI. That was the first Super Bowl where there was a black head coach. In fact, it was also the first where both head coaches were black (if you count mulattoes like winning coach Tony Dungy as black).

A very similar thing happened in the 1984 Miss America Pageant. The first African American winner happened that year. You know her name: Vanessa Williams. But you may not recall the first runner-up, in spite of the fact that she became Miss America when Williams was forced to resign when sleazy nude photos of her surfaced. That first runner-up, Suzette Charles, was also black.

The fact that you do not remember her name is because she was post-racial.

You know the name of the first African-American to play Major League Baseball—Jackie Robinson—but you probably do not remember the name of the second (Larry Doby) unless you are a baseball trivia expert. (I actually knew his name—probably because I wrote a book on baseball coaching.)

Robinson was racial. But because of him, the subsequent black Major League Baseball players were post-racial—way back in 1947.

How about the first black American to lose his life in the Revolutionary War? Many educated people know his name: Crispus Attucks.

Who was the second? I don’t know, because he was post-racial, even though he died way back in the 1770s.

In 1965 Bill Cosby became the first African-American co-star in a dramatic television series (I Spy). Who was the second? I dunno. Whoever they were, they were post-racial.

Throughout American life, minority pioneers, blacks, women, jews, Irish Catholics, and so on have punched through ceilings. Once the hole is made in the ceiling, all successors are post-racial or post-gender or post-religious bias or whatever.

Is Barack Obama post-racial?

Hell no! The guy’s the poster boy for a racist policy—affirmative action. He’s also a mulatto like Dungy, although blacks and whites seem to have a “close enough for government work” position regarding the “blackness” of mulattoes. Obama consciously used his blackness to get into college, law school, and politics. He used it to get into the Oval Office, a job he would not now have if he were identical in all respects except 100% white.

One sign that we are in a post-racial world will be when we stop calling mixed-race people like Tiger Woods (25% black), Barack Obama, and Halle Berry (50% black) black.

Barack Obama is the opposite of post-racial. So was Jackie Robinson. But Robinson became the first black baseball player on merit. The racism was in how long it took to happen and how many other blacks of equal or greater merit had been passed over because of their race. Same applies to Cosby, Williams, and so on.

Barack Obama has gotten nowhere on merit. He might have, but he never even tried, apparently because of lack of belief that he could.

But probably his first black or “black” successor as president will be post-racial because of Obama—because people have the same “close enough for government work” attitude about affirmative-action “achievements” as they do about percentage of black blood. Obama’s first black successor will be post-racial not because of the content of Obama’s character, but merely because of the color of his skin. Jackie Robinson’s successors were post-racial because of the content of his character.

Is America now a post-racial society?

Getting there, little by little. A pioneer here, a pioneer there. They all add up. It is not a yes or no question as Charlie Rose and all the others keep posing it. It is a matter of percentages of areas where a black has not yet succeeding. It is a spectrum. Areas of American life where blacks cannot succeed are racial. Those where they have broken through are post-racial. The percentage of racial areas is shrinking like a wet spot on a blackboard. Black coaches, black quarterbacks, black tennis players, black golfers, black congressmen men and women, black movie stars, black generals, black recording artists are now old hat. The real black leaders are those seccessful pioneers, not the self-proclaimed ones like Jesse Jackson.

How will we know we have entered a post-racial America? It will not be a single big event. Like General Douglas MacArthur’s “old soldier,” racism in America will never die, it will just fade away. It has faded away to a large extent, in spite of the efforts of race hustlers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Barack Obama to keep it alive, while crying crocodile tears about it’s still being alive, so they can use it to gain power.

The arrival of post-racial America will be marked not by what happens then, but what stops happening, namely, asking whether we have arrived at a post-racial America.

John T. Reed

I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions. If there are any errors or omissions in my facts or logic, please tell me about them. If you are correct, I will fix the item in question. If you wish, I will give you credit. Where appropriate, I will apologize for the error. To date, I have been surprised at how few such corrections I have had to make.