I’m not denying that this is one of the most unbelievable moments in African-American history (as John McCain pointed out in his concession speech). And I’m not denying that it’s an unbelievable moment for all Americans and for the entire world. By “this” I, of course, am speaking of electing our first African-American President. I agree with with both of these above mentioned statements–this is an unbelievable moment. At the same time, I don’t want to forget that President-Elect Obama didn’t want this to be about race. This has always been about the issues facing the American people. After Obama was announced the winner, all talk on the network television stations was about race. Much of what I heard was that America has come so far in terms of race (this I also agree with), but one of the comments that resonated the most with me came from Tavis Smiley (host of his own show on PBS and a guest on NBC for election night) who said that just because we’ve elected an African-American as President it doesn’t mean that we as Americans have dealt with the issue of race that is still present in the U.S. The fact that race was even a reason some has to vote for or against a candidate is evidence enough to me that racism sill rears its ugly head here in America.
While I wish race wasn’t an issue, I would be crazy if I thought it couldn’t be at this time in history. As I said before, I agree that this is a monumentous racial moment in human history. I just agree with Smiley when he says that we have a long way to go–this is a huge step in the right direction–before the issue of race has really been dealt with.
This was a race about issues facing the American people. Is race one of the issues? Yes. Has it been solved? No.
