A Quick, Yet Important Post
Posted by bryce in Barak Obama, Capitalism, Opinion, Race
up to my eyebrows in reading. will do big post this weekend (I swear) on the topic of Gluttony. You'll dig it. It was another special on the history channel.
But for now. Congratulations US, you have a new president. He seems to be excited for change, excited for his job, excited for his people. It's good, it's we needed the change- it's inspiring. BUT...
If I hear one more white person talk about this is proof we are all equal regardless of skin color, I may be forced to strangle them. Those of you who consider yourself white and think the problem is dead: The only reason you can ignore difference is because of the power you have in the social hierarchy- the social hegemony. As Hirsch states in her book Family Frames (talking about the family of man exhibit) the only people who see equality [in all of the exhibit's images] are the ones with the power to accept that they're not us. While this is a radical phrasing of that, there is some truth to it.
Am I a racist- absolutely not. But I do believe that the way to combat racism is to stop talking about the birth of equality, and to talk about how racism looms in our every action; how it is a subliminal structure in our every day existence. Brushing it under the carpet with the excuse of a semi-black president is not going to make things better. We need to talk about the elephant in the room until the non-existent, social categories begin to deconstruct. As it stands now, we're pretending that we can see through the mesh wall that is the barrier of racism. It is not dead, merely more translucent because the white people say so.
Disclaimer: I am not a race theorist. This may possibly be an ignorant post- yet it is how I've felt the last couple of days. Am I excited for change? Yes. I am not, however, in the false sense of hope that the racist underpinnings have been destroyed merely because we've put a black man, a powerful and brilliant one at that, in the white house.
