Victor Davis Hanson: The New Racial Mess
[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.]
Weren’t we supposed to enter a new age of tolerance with the election of Pres. Barack Obama?
His half-black, half-white ancestry and broad support across racial lines suggested that at last Americans judged each other on the content of our characters — not the color of our skin or our tribal affiliations.
Instead, in just 18 months of the Obama administration, racial discord is growing and relations seem to have been set back a generation....
The more the president appeals to his base in racial terms, the more his appointees identify themselves as members of a particular tribe, and the more political issues are framed by racial divisions, so all the more such racial obsession creates a backlash among the racially diverse American people.
America has largely moved beyond race. Tragically, our president and a host of his supportive special interests have not.
Read entire article at National Review
Weren’t we supposed to enter a new age of tolerance with the election of Pres. Barack Obama?
His half-black, half-white ancestry and broad support across racial lines suggested that at last Americans judged each other on the content of our characters — not the color of our skin or our tribal affiliations.
Instead, in just 18 months of the Obama administration, racial discord is growing and relations seem to have been set back a generation....
The more the president appeals to his base in racial terms, the more his appointees identify themselves as members of a particular tribe, and the more political issues are framed by racial divisions, so all the more such racial obsession creates a backlash among the racially diverse American people.
America has largely moved beyond race. Tragically, our president and a host of his supportive special interests have not.