Will all those leftists who call America a racist nation apologize now that Americans have elected Barack Obama president? I doubt it.
Barack Obama’s election as the first black U.S. president promises to usher in a new era of race relations. But it is likely to be a complex evolution, marked by new issues and tensions.
As election night unfolded on television screens in the predominantly white, blue-collar suburbs of Mahoning County, Ohio, which went heavily for Mr. Obama, some viewers had a pointed interpretation: Black people in America, you have no more excuses.
“They have head football coaches, they…have a president, they can’t say society is holding them back anymore,” said Mike Kluchar, a white 43-year-old assembly-line worker who voted for Mr. Obama.
…“What you are hearing today—good Lord, it is like Obama is the savior,” said Shelby Steele, a black writer who is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover institution. “Blacks still have a 70% illegitimacy rate; 50% of those incarcerated are still black. Obama will govern politically. He will address health care and have a tax plan. To look at him culturally is going to lead to expectations that will be disappointed.”
…Electing a black president “strips us as African-Americans of every excuse, every ‘ism,’ every schism we’ve tried to hide behind,” said Kenneth Stepney Jr., 25, a student at Richmond’s Virginia Union University. “He can do his part but we have to do ours as well. We can’t hold the government responsible for our failings.”
