The Race Card Plays

The dreamers, the hopeful even some of the jaded saw Barack Obama's election as the beginning of the post-racial era in America. It was not. Race still matters, the Race card still plays although the "browning" of America is taking place at an increasingly rapid rate. The simple truth is my 14 year old grandson, Jean-Pierre Elijah Chance, has a greater chance of being arrested than the blond kid across town. Sometimes what you have to tell children is hard. Elijah wanted a paint ball gun and I had to explain to him he couldn't have a gun like that to carry around in the neighborhood. He's tall and from a distance looks like a full grown man. He could get shot. He will always have to be just a little more wary, even if he should grow up to be a college professor, like Henry Louis Gates. Race played a major part in that brouhaha and so did class and priviledge. The distinguished Dr. Gates was able to get a high profile attorney and the attention of the President after being taken out of his own house in handcuffs and booked. He got lots of media attention because of who he is and who he knows. If "Skip" lived next door to me, not so much noise would have been heard in the land. He also would have had enough sense to shut up and not smart mouth the cops. Dr. Gates behaved like many white professors would have, but his outrage didn't play well even in the rarified college air. Face it, outrage doesn't play so well in individual circumstances--if those circumstances happen to be Black. I'm guessing a few more generations will have to pass before a little boy can simply be free to be a little boy and not a LBWB ( little boy while Black). Perhaps PWB (Professoring While Black) also. Maybe the grandson of Ruth Adkins Robinson's grandson will see a true post-racial America.