Last year, when the field of Democrat candidates for the presidency thinned to Obama and Clinton, I immediately went into panic mode. "It is too soon!" kept running through my head like a manic mantra. Like Edwin Yoder - Pulitzer Prize winning columnist from the now defunct Washington Star - pointed out in his memoirs, it is never a good thing when significant social change is forced before its time. He and I are in agreement that the civil rights movement pushed the issue of racial equality too far too fast. It not that either of us believe that racism is appropriate on any level - we just realize that forcing social change too quickly results in backlash, often of the violent sort.
And that brings me back to the presidential campaign of 2008. Bluntly, the U.S. is not ready for a black man or white woman in the White House. I knew that Bush & Co. had spent too much of America's good will toward the GOP, and that change was in the air. So when it came down to Obama and Clinton, all I could think was "ready or not, here it comes."
Now, unfortunately, my predictions seem to be coming true. The race card is coming up again, thanks to President Carter, and he is right. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he should have said it.
This is beyond being politically incorrect. It is stating the obvious when no one needs it to be said. Bringing up the fact that there is still a great deal of racism in America right now is back pedaling. Over the years I have often steered candidates for office away from various battles on the campaign trail. Invariably, it was because the candidate was dead set on fighting a battle that wasn't worth fighting, or simply couldn't be won. Carter pointed out one of the latter.
Eradicating racism in America will not happen in my lifetime. We may come close, and my children may see it, but I know I won't. It isn't anyone's fault, and there isn't a quick solution out there. The bottom line is that our society needs more time to move beyond the attitudes of the past and present. Change rarely happens in quick leaps, and when it does, continued change moves much more slowly. We have already interrupted the natural evolution of our society from one that proclaimed that blacks were subhuman to one that considers blacks as equal to whites more than once. Expecting the people to change more quickly is naive at best.
X-posted from Everything in Its Own Time