The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Clarence Page: Racial hope fades despite Obama

Community service
11/20/09
‘Not because of the profit motive’
11/20/09
Waiting until 50
11/20/09
A proud sheriff
11/19/09
‘Media has already convicted him’
11/19/09
> More opinion headlines

10:19 AM Friday, November 6, 2009

In my favorite “Star Trek” episode, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise encountered humanoids from a planet embroiled in war over an issue as clear as black and white. Literally.

The planet Cheron is locked in a race war. This astonishes earthlings. To us, all Cheronians look alike. Their skin is evenly divided, half-black and half-white, down the middle of their faces and bodies.

A perplexed Captain Kirk asks, what is the difference that Cheronians are fighting about? “Isn’t it obvious?” says a Cheronian who is white on his left side, “All of his people are white on the RIGHT side.”

The episode, like all good fiction, helps us come to grips with painful realities. It first aired in 1969, a time when our country’s racial differences were erupting in riots and assassinations. The black-white planet was doomed by its inhabitants’ inability to deal even with the slightest diversity. Could we earthlings do better?

Flash forward 40 years. That old Star Trek episode came to mind as I read the latest Gallup Poll on the state of the nation’s racial optimism. A year after two-thirds of Americans polled expressed high hopes for a post-racial future, Gallup says, “there is scarcely more hope” for a solution on race than there was before.

If so, I am not surprised. In fact, I am somewhat relieved that we Americans are showing ourselves to be optimistic but also realistic. We know one election is not going to solve our racial challenges. We still have hope. We have only raised our standards for how we define our long-sought “solution.”

Since 1963, Gallup has been asking Americans whether we think relations between blacks and whites “will always be a problem for the United States, or that a solution will eventually be worked out.” The optimistic view that a solution will be worked out surged to an all-time high of 67 percent the day after Obama’s election, but a year later, only 56 percent express that belief. That’s statistically the same as the 55 percent who felt that way back in December 1963, when Gallup first asked the question.

“In short, despite all that has happened in the intervening decades,” says Gallup, “there is scarcely more hope now than there was those many years ago that the nation’s race-relations situation will be solved.”

But Gallup should not sound so gloomy. The Americans in their survey are being realistic. Americans might want to be post-racial, but I think we also know in our heart of hearts that we’re not ready yet.

After all, it was not that long ago that Gallup found our racial optimism at an all-time low of 29 percent. That was in October 1995, shortly after O.J. Simpson’s acquittal of double murder dramatically revealed the nation’s racial divide on national television. Seldom has our state of race looked so bleak. Yet, Tiger Woods was becoming a new cultural hero across racial lines, Oprah Winfrey already was, and Colin Powell was seriously being urged by high-powered fans in both parties to run for president. Change was in the air. Hope was being kept alive.

It is a sign of our progress that racism has been driven underground, if not eliminated. But racial suspicions rise to fill the gap. For example, it is hard for me to read about church pastors like the Rev. Wiley Drake of Buena Park, Calif., or Pastor Steven Anderson of Tempe, Ariz. — who have proudly prayed for Obama to die soon — and not wonder how much race might be a motivating factor in their prayers.

But race is such a touchy topic these days that you can be accused of being a racist just for bringing it up. Obama’s thoughts on racial profiling led Fox News star Glenn Beck to call the president “a racist” who “hates white culture.” When Katie Couric later asked him, “What is ‘white culture’?” Beck looked surprised. He accused Couric of trying to “trap” him and refused to answer. That’s too bad. I, too, would like to know what he means by “white culture.” By understanding my differences with people who come from other cultures, I hope to gain a better understanding of what I have in common with them — even with Glenn Beck.

E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.

Tribune Media Services

Share this article

ADD COMMENT

Comments feed

Mr. Obama is just as white as he is black. That being said, the reason racism is so persistent is simply because too many people have made a handsome livlihood by inciting, baiting, politicking, writing and otherwise cashing in on "racism" in America. We no longer assimilate as Americans, but accentuate our differences with an "in your face" attitude. Racism will fade when it is no longer profitable or politically expedient for the pathetic and arrogant parasites among us. Mr. Page, please heed.

cda
12:08 PM, 11/9/2009

REPORT ABUSE

Mr. Page: You are racist from my perspective! I know so many white people who have changed their views and hearts. They see us all as people. You think people are racist because they defend christianity over the muslim belief. Obama has an agenda to change America to a Marxist, lock and chain state. You are stuck on "Racist!"

George Wagner
9:43 PM, 11/6/2009

REPORT ABUSE

Jesus saw at the tower of Babel that mankind could not agree on many things.
However if we can not learn to respect each other here on earth how can we expect to inherit the New Jerusalem and live in harmony?
Cut a Red, Yellow, Black or white human and we all bleed red and feel the same pain. So where is the problem of respecting all?

Dee
8:47 PM, 11/6/2009

REPORT ABUSE

99% of black voters voted for a man for president who had never ran anything in his life.....because he was black. Page, you're the racist, race baiting reporter.

johnny
2:04 PM, 11/6/2009

REPORT ABUSE

I knew it...!!! Clarence can't stay away from the race crapola for long...!!!

No Mo Bho
11:16 AM, 11/6/2009

REPORT ABUSE

We welcome your comments. Please remember this is a public forum and behave appropriately. Your comments must conform to our visitor's agreement.