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Omaha Steve

(99,073 posts)
Tue Jan 17, 2012, 06:58 PM Jan 2012

Racial discussions still important, even after Obama’s election


http://baystatebanner.com/Opinion58-2009-03-19

Jeff Stone

It’s rare when the Bay State Banner’s editorial page and the Boston Globe’s Derrick Jackson are aligned with Jeff Jacoby, also of the Globe. But they were all recently in sync in rejecting any urgency to Attorney General Eric Holder’s call for frank talk on race in America.

The Banner preferred to focus on President Barack Obama’s election as evidence that diligent effort “can overcome racial discrimination” and said black militants were delighted to hear Holder’s words (“Time to take note,” Editorial, March 5, 2009). Jackson, in a March 7, 2009, Globe column, said Holder’s statement was “largely needless, given that the nation now has a black president,” and Jacoby opined on Feb. 25, 2009, that we’ve been “jawboning about race for two centuries” and “more race talk is the last thing we need.”

With due respect to the apparently dialogue-averse Banner editorial board and Globe journalists, I side with Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr., who in the Banner’s own March 5 Roving Camera said, “This speech started a long-needed discussion of race in America.”

There are two major points I believe the Banner, Jackson, Jacoby and many other commentators have underplayed: that interracial relations in the United States remain, to our detriment, arms-length at best, and that Holder’s frank talk does not have to center around resentful debating and accusations about each other’s deficiencies.

FULL story at link.

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Racial discussions still important, even after Obama’s election (Original Post) Omaha Steve Jan 2012 OP
I think the discussion may be needed now more than I ever imagined. gateley Jan 2012 #1

gateley

(62,683 posts)
1. I think the discussion may be needed now more than I ever imagined.
Tue Jan 17, 2012, 07:15 PM
Jan 2012

In my white, sheltered existence I have been horrified at the seemingly acceptable racism that has gotten attention. And those who won't admit it -- maybe even to themselves, like the Birthers.

Before Obama's election I was unaware of the depth and extent of it.

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