If I may play peacemaker here -- or, as some would say, be wishy-washy on an issue where no one is allowed any but extreme views -- you're both right. Logan is correct -- and he is echoing things said last night by Obama and his supporters. America cannot be considered institutionally racist, particularly not the way it was 40 or 50 years ago. But Ayiekie and others are also correct in that whether or not the system has stopped being racist, we still have racists in our population. The fact of one does not disprove the other.
And there are going to be collisions between those two facts in the coming years, no doubt about it. We've already had some -- those two braindead yokels who decided a couple weeks ago over a beer to kill a hundred blacks and then try assassinating Obama are just on the dumbass end of the scale. The whole "Muslim"/"terrorist" smear campaign only whipped up the racist lunatic fringe, and it's not going to go away now that he's going to be President -- his win will only seem to support some groups' more apocalyptic scenarios. I'm afraid that, even though the election proves that there are no further bars in the way of African Americans at least within government, on the private racism front we're probably going to see things get worse before they get better.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
And there are going to be collisions between those two facts in the coming years, no doubt about it. We've already had some -- those two braindead yokels who decided a couple weeks ago over a beer to kill a hundred blacks and then try assassinating Obama are just on the dumbass end of the scale. The whole "Muslim"/"terrorist" smear campaign only whipped up the racist lunatic fringe, and it's not going to go away now that he's going to be President -- his win will only seem to support some groups' more apocalyptic scenarios. I'm afraid that, even though the election proves that there are no further bars in the way of African Americans at least within government, on the private racism front we're probably going to see things get worse before they get better.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.