tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2025359433700710612.post-38583051571412580252008-05-13T08:42:00.000-07:002008-05-13T09:30:41.558-07:00I wonder if we're having that conversation about race we were going to have? I don't just mean the one Barack Obama began with his <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-t_n_92077.html">March 18 speech in Philadelphia</a>, but the one we were going to have after the end of the Civil War, or the one we were going to have in response to the Jim Crow era, or the one after <em>Brown vs. Board of Education</em>, or the one after the "I have a dream" speech, or the one after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or the one after the Watts riots, or the one after the Rodney King / OJ Simpson verdicts, or the one after Hurricane Katrina. I think all these National Conversations About Race are all the same National Conversation About Race, and I wonder: are we having it?<br /><br />I don't know. Here are a few readings:<ul><li>Political pundits more or less freely <a href="http://dailyhowler.com/dh051208.shtml">obsess about race</a>, but candidates seem to be held to very different standards.</li><li>West Virginia is expected to hand Hillary Clinton a big victory today. The <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90354926">pro-Clinton demographics</a> seem to have a lot to do with race.</li><li>It turns out people are strongly <a href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=buried-prejudice-the-bigot-in-your-brain&print=true">attuned to racial differences</a>, and pure neutrality is not so easy. (<a href="http://georgejunior.blogspot.com/2008/05/weekend-reading_11.html">H/T</a>)</li><li><a href="http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/blaktime.html">For decades</a>, Oregon dealt with the problem of slavery and race relations largely by <a href="http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/slavery.html">keeping black people out of the territory/state</a>. To this day, Oregon has a comparatively small African-American population. Sometimes <a href="http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/liff-modrentimes-monkeys_11.html">we hear things</a> we wish we hadn't.</li></ul>Is this the conversation? You tell me.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10523307255698594696noreply@blogger.com2