The Dean’s Blog

Without knowing my “politics,” throughout the day on November 5, men and women stopped me to give a hug, shake hands, or to say, “congratulations.”  They had faith that a new day had arrived and that we all made it possible.  The new day was about burying a legacy of refusing to look at each other as individuals.

So fast-forward, the family-like feeling is still present.  Many still have faith in that new day. Even Tracy Morgan is using the latest buzzword:

Has Tracy delivered the acceptance speech for all of us?  With tomorrow marking the 80th anniversary of the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was born, there will be plenty of talk about reaching the mountaintop of a new America where race matters less.  Is there any doubt that the celebratory speeches throughout the weekend and on Monday will herald the era of Americans seeing each other as individuals as beginning sometime after noon on January 20. We’ll all sling the post-racial America talk.   

Some say now is the time.  The time to bury Martin Luther King, his colleagues, and their approaches within history’s grounds – where they belong.  That the time has come where we, as a society, have demonstrated that we can make race-free decisions about who will lead us.  That time for hoping that America has gotten past race is no longer necessary — we done it and will see the proof on January 20.  

Do we now all live with color blindness or will we have an improved, mature understanding of when race may matter? Are we serious when we say that a post-racial America is what we want? Really? Are we prepared to make sense of the idea that we may only be at a unique point in the Nation’s life – a mere moment – that may not come again soon, or is this truly, as Toni Morrison and others described it as a “national evolution (or revolution).”

Can we say that we are in a society where race does not and will not matter when a recent report indicates that young Black males are dishing out and the victim of horrible violence in their lives – or that other disparity within the quality of life for Americans appears to have race as a major factor (not necessarily news)?  Will we really take a different approach to building and maintaining a civil society and its leaders? Everything is all good. Right?  Can’t wait to talk to next Tuesday in the new America.