Post-racial?

Editor,

Miles Davis admired Satchmo's musicianship, but he refused to grin and shuck and jive like him to make white people feel at ease. Miles made no excuses for being black, and he demanded to be respected for who he was as an individual without mincing words or pulling punches, whether this made white people feel uncomfortable or not.

President Obama has been honing how he presents himself his whole life so as not to make white people feel uncomfortable. He doesn't force the intellectualism and wind up looking dumb by not knowing what the words he uses mean, and he immediately jumps to the center and seeks consensus when he senses that white people are feeling threatened.

The most cursory reading of American history, which begins with the colonization of what is now the eastern United States by the British, reveals if nothing else that: (a) the assertion that we are living in a "post-racial" era, assuming that those words actually mean something, is patently ridiculous, and (b) there is a faction in this country, present from before the founding, to whom appeals for fairness, empathy, and compassion mean absolutely nothing next to money.

I personally support Mr. Obama in his dream of racial equality because I share it, but I urge him to open his eyes to the truth of where this country has been, where it is, and where his adversaries will continue to try to steer it until the end of time.

My advice to our president is to stop fearing being controversial. His enemies already hate him and are fabricating reasons why others should hate him, too. Being president is about more than being elected -- at which Mr. Obama is a master. It is about fighting for the people who believe in you, who, by the way, are not waiting as you are for your enemies for the last 200 years to suddenly wake up and see the light.

re: "As Race Debate Grows, Obama Steers Clear of It" (9/17/2009)