The election of Barack Obama has done nothing to resolve the racial problems of our country; on the contrary it may have made them worse. Many whites can now say "enough"...that the black man has finally achieved equality in our society. I am sure many whites felt that voting for him in 2008 was there way of showing that they were no longer racist. His re-election in 2012 leaves me scratching my head; is my observation wrong or was Romney just the "right" opponent to insure another victory for racial justice?
It should also be noted that Obama is not our first "black" president; he is our first "brown" president. Remember his mother was white and he was raised in a white world by white grandparents. To say other wise is discount the effect of our mothers on our upbringing and I don't know anyone who would claim that. I am also thinking about that Langston Hughes poem that in part said; "if your white, you're alright. If you are brown, hang around. If you are black stay back".
In The Nation magazine from Sept 2/9, 2013 is the following statement. "Black unemployment is almost double that of whites; the percentage of black children living in poverty is almost triple that of whites; black life expectancy in Washington DC is lower than in the Gaza Strip; one in three black boys born in 2001 stands a lifetime risk of going to prison; more black men were disenfranchised in 2004 because they were felons than in 1870, the year the 15th Amendment ostensibly secured their right to vote".
The same source notes the following. "Yet the fact remains that African Americans are no better off materially as a result (of his election), even if they may have been worse off had he lost, and that the economic gap between blacks and whites has grown under his presidency".
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