Originally posted by: Jhhnn
From the OP-
I mean, we elected the best person for the job... isn't that what normal people should do? I guess I just don't grok why people doing the right thing is such a big deal.
Why?
History, on several different levels, starting with 400 years of slavery and the justification for it- basically that blacks were
inferior, and that anybody who had black lineage was
inferior, and could be enslaved- they bore the biblical mark of Cain, and carried that original sin with them down through the ages.
That context is explored at depth in this book, highly recommended -
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Ger...ordinary/dp/0871139219
That's 20 generations of prejudice being overcome, no small matter, at all.
And then there's the historical exploitation of that sentiment, first by the Dixiecrats, and later by republicans in their adoption of the southern strategy in the wake of the civil rights movement. Righties are free, of course, to bullshit themselves wrt that- right now, they're bullshitting themselves wrt most everything, so there's no point in making denial anything less than total...
Despite attempts to minimize the event, Obama's inauguration will be historic on a level that probably won't be fully understood until some time in the future, maybe by our children or grandchildren. His election was, in many ways, a referendum on the whole issue of race in America, and we seem to have passed the test, shown just how far we've come in that regard. His victories in Virginia and N Carolina are no small thing, either, leaving the forces of so-called social conservatism trying to cope with a new reality, one they'll have even more difficulty addressing in a meaningful way...
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