Example Of Essay On A Post-Racial America?

(a) In his article “African American Self-Reliance in a Post-racial America,” Marcus Coleman discussed whether or not the pundits claim that the election of Barrack Obama as the first African American President, has marked the beginning of a post-racial America were the racial and ethical agonies, such as slavery and Jim Crow, have forever been put behind us and that forever more we would exist as a society that values, believes in, and supports multi-culturalism and multi-racism. While Coleman, agrees that Obama’s election was indeed groundbreaking on many levels, especially, for him as a fellow African American. But, the reality of the situation was that although it was able to highlight the fact that African Americans are not the “negative other” that they have been described as throughout the history of the nation, but that there are as many capable African Americans as there are capable European Americans. Nevertheless, society’s inability to see “the Obama” in other African Americans has resulted in the continuation of attitudes and policies that continue to treat African Americans as if they were the same “negative other” that they have always been considered. In other words, Obama was special, but most African Americans are not and that has been illustrated in the continued support of policies in health, education, and income that hurt people of color.
(b) The clearest and most relevant example to corroborate the author’s main point that the election of Barrack Obama as the first African American President of the United States did not mark the beginning of a “post-racial” era was the election of Donald J. Trump. On a myriad of levels, Trump is the anti-Obama, but more importantly the base of people that he represents or that support him are exactly those segments of the population that fundamentally oppose a post-racial era. Trump’s recent ban on refugees and the immigrants from seven nations, the fact that he has an alleged white supremacist as which top White House advisor, his support of Republican congressional efforts to eliminate or limit a range of health care, education and income programs that are largely focused on or affect American citizens of color, not just suggest to prove that rather than a post-racial society, the US or at least a significant portion of its population and political leaders want to at best return the nation to a “separate but equal” society or, at worst scrub the nation of all racial diversity limiting than decreasing the growth of the minority population, which is nothing else is done to stop it, will grow to be larger than the white population within the next one hundred years. Moreover, there is good reason to believe that this post-racial era backlash was started and sustained as a response to the election of Barrack Obama. In other words, the anti-post-racial advocates were so incensed that an African American could become the President that they aggressively campaigned to replace him with a supporter of their values.
(c) The three concepts from the textbook that were illustrated in the readings are: double consciousness, binary, and post-racial. Double consciousness, refers to the W.E.B. DuBois’s theory that an African American has two views of the world, namely one where he seems himself as if he is equal to everyone else, the other where he realizes that other seem him as different and not like everyone else. So, for instance, while an African American student may know that she is the smartest person in the class, she will also know that the teacher and many of her classmate will not acknowledge that fact because no matter what, they see her as inferior. This is illustrated in the readings, through the fact that explanation that although President Obama was successful in a number of areas, he was not given the credit he deserves or credit was also connected with others. Binary, as used in the text, refers to the idea that when two options are available, such as white and black, one option is always seen as superior and the other is seen as inferior. In the US, the ultimate binary is white and black. In this context, white refers to European-Americans and it is seen as the good option. So, everything that is connected to European-Americans is seen as good. Black, on the other hand, refers to African Americans or other citizens of color. Naturally, anything connected with them is seen as bad or negative. The concept of binary is illustrated in the readings through Malcolm X’s expression that the binary is wrong. The reality is that black is the positive and white is the negative. Lastly, post-racial refers to the idea that society will no longer look to race as a characterization or judgement of the individual. In other words, all races matter and are important to the development of the country. This was illustrated in the readings, through the analysis of American society after the election of President Obama in 2008.