NY Times Opinion Page: "The Optics Have Changed. White Supremacy Remains"

NYTimes

The election of the first African-American president scared some white folks who were comfortable with the racial status quo, and made many people of color optimistic about the prospect of change. But, so far, neither the fear nor the hope has been warranted – and that’s not a good thing. We needed a game changer but instead got more of the lackluster same.

The problem isn’t “race relations”; it is white supremacy – the ideology that white people are superior to people of color, and that whiteness is integral to the United States’s identity. White supremacy is the reason for the backlash against this year’s Miss America, who is of South Asian descent. It’s why the former slave-holding states are passing laws that make it harder for minorities to vote. White supremacy explains how a grown man can shoot an unarmed black teenager and successfully claim self-defense.

Yes, there’s Oprah. But a few successful African-Americans do not change the fact that we have one black president, and nearly one million black people in prison. Jay Z and Beyonce don’t represent the average black family, which has one-sixth the wealth of the average white family. [MORE]