Americans, and indeed many around the world, hailed the victory of Obama in the presidential election back in November as a sign that the black-white "divide" in the US had been breached. Obama's election was seen as some sort of milestone.
If only it were really quite so! Tolerance.org reports on the "facts on the ground" as it were:
"Barack Obama's ascension to the Presidency surely marks racial progress in the U.S., yet a rash of hate crimes and bias incidents in the wake of his election show clearly that America is far from entering a "post-racial" era, as some commentators have suggested.
Many Americans never thought they would live to see an African American in the White House, and, with the nation's highest color barrier now broken, some have even argued that the U.S. is now a "post-racial" nation — a country where race no longer matters, where racism no longer exists.
In the weeks after the election, however, we've witnessed a wave of hate incidents demonstrating quite clearly that race still matters in America. According to the Secret Service, Obama has received more threats than any incoming president in history. In K-12 schools, children have chanted threats against the President-elect and scrawled racist graffiti on public property."
If only it were really quite so! Tolerance.org reports on the "facts on the ground" as it were:
"Barack Obama's ascension to the Presidency surely marks racial progress in the U.S., yet a rash of hate crimes and bias incidents in the wake of his election show clearly that America is far from entering a "post-racial" era, as some commentators have suggested.
Many Americans never thought they would live to see an African American in the White House, and, with the nation's highest color barrier now broken, some have even argued that the U.S. is now a "post-racial" nation — a country where race no longer matters, where racism no longer exists.
In the weeks after the election, however, we've witnessed a wave of hate incidents demonstrating quite clearly that race still matters in America. According to the Secret Service, Obama has received more threats than any incoming president in history. In K-12 schools, children have chanted threats against the President-elect and scrawled racist graffiti on public property."
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