Our "Post Racial Society"

Let's take a moment and look at all of the reasons why all of this talk about a post-racial America by various blowhards is so absurd.

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when nearly 40 percent of black children under the age of 5 live at or below the poverty line?

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when the level of school segregation for Hispanics is at its highest in forty years and segregation of blacks is back to levels not seen since the late 1960s?

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when the gaps in wealth, income, education and health care have widened over the last eight years?

In 2006, 20.3 percent of blacks were not covered by health insurance, 34.1 percent of Hispanics were not covered by health insurance, compared to only 10.8 percent of whites.

In 2007, the unemployment rate for blacks was twice as high as that for whites.

There are those who will continue to insist that the gap in wealth, income, health care and education is due to an inherent culture of victimization.

There are some who will continue to say, "If people of color only worked harder, they’d be fine."

Well, to put it bluntly, that's an idiotic assumption.

This economy has never provided enough jobs for everyone.

The manner in which education is funded gives a leg up to those who grow up in wealthy districts.

Health insurance is a necessity, more so to those without the means, since they rarely see a doctor.

Like it or not, admit it or not, institutional racism persists.

President Obama once said, “Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

His election and his words redeem some of the sacrifices of so many during the protests at lunch counters and on Southern roads. However, it does not fix nor will it make the racism and bigotry go away overnight.

You still think that we've achieved a post-racial society simply because we have a black president? Well then, consider one more thing, the vast disparities still remaining between the conditions of blacks and whites in America. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median black worker earns just over $600/week, about 80% of what the median white worker makes. Black men are incarcerated at 6.6 times the rate of white men, with almost one in twenty black men in prison. Unemployment rates are nearly twice as high for blacks as for whites in almost every demographic category. Almost half of all young black men without a high school education are out of work nationally.

So much more needs to change before we start spouting off about a "post-racial" society.