March 16, 2015--Post-Racial America?

To many, the election of Barack Obama signaled that America, at long last, was becoming a post-racial society.

Lost in the euphoria was the fact that Obama lost the white vote to John McCain by 12 percentage points, 55-43, and to Mitt Romney four years later by even more, by 20 points, 59-39. And many of us feel that the personal and vitriolic disdain for Obama shown by Republican lawmakers has as much to do with his skin color as his policies, which, in truth were and are quite middle of the road. Very much including his signature program, Obamacare, a name applied to the Affordable Care Act by mocking opponents who hoped it would fail and that Obama would thereby be eternally stigmatized.

Yes, the same people resented Bill Clinton and tried to bring him down (largely because he was successful and triangulated his way to stealing much of the GOP agenda), but with Obama it has been harsher, more hate-filled.

Even among many young people--Obama's initial natural constituency--racial animus has spilled out into the headiness. Very much including overt racism by over-privledged college students enrolled in elite colleges and universities.

At the University of Oklahoma, for example, a video that went viral shows members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity chanting racial slurs--

There will never be a nigger at SAE. There will never be a nigger at SAE. You can hang him from a tree.

Though the First Amendment will protect them, the university president, David Boren, closed down the frat house within 24 hours and at least two students were quickly expelled. SAE has deep roots in Southern racism. One of its principles calls for the restoration of Ante Bellum traditions, traditions that before the Cicil War included legalized slavery. It appears that that tradition among some is sadly still alive.

Then at even-more-elite U.C.L.A., members of the student council were caught on video recently discussing what would usually be a routine matter--the confirmation of a second-year student to the university's judicial board. A student who happened to be Jewish.

She was asked by a Student Council member--

Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?

After doing her best to answer, she was asked to leave the room and for 40 minutes the council debated whether her Jewishness and affiliations with organizations such as Hillel would bias her dealing with "sensitive governance questions."

She was voted down and it wasn't until a faculty advisor intervened and more discussion ensued that a second vote was taken and she was confirmed.

Negative feelings toward Israel on liberal campuses is fueling these kinds of reactions toward Jews. A sad conflation of Jewishness and Israeli government policy.

I have had this experience and thus needed to draw a distinction between myself as a nonobservant Jew while at the same time being a harsh critic of current Israeli governmental policy.

Jews are not by definition Israelis and being Jewish does not require one to support Israeli government policy.

But such is the state of things in post-racial America.

More work needs to be done and a great deal more change is necessary for us as a people to get there.