A white person declaring that race didn't matter seems a little disingenuous to me, because someone white is never penalized for race.

Just because there's a black president doesn't mean that this country isn't totally messed up about race. There are communities of black people with no men in them. Literally. They are all in prison. For kids in those communities to grow up watching a black president: it's all about race.

Here is a great post from raceintheworkplace.com about why it's is ignorant to say you are "color blind" or "post-race" or whatever.

http://www.raceintheworkplace.com/2007/11/07/why-you-shouldnt-be-colorbl...

Penelope

As a generation, I think part of the reason that we are so close to being post-racial is that we have so much diversity in our generation. I was talking to the school superintendent in my city recently and now the minority is now the majority in schools. Which is amazing for Madison. The feeling I had while watching the post-election media was that they just didn't get it.

@Penelope- You make a good point, I can only have an opinion about this based on my experiences. That's why I asked the community their opinions :) Also, claiming to be colorblind is pretending that you don't see the color of someone's skin, which is obviously not true. However, for me and many people, the election was not about race, it was about change.

@GenXpert - It was definitely about generational politics as well. I'd love to see your post about it.

@Rebecca - Very true, America is very diverse now, and it's becoming the norm. It's amazing that the minority is now the majority in Madison schools. I've heard projections that the minority will be the majority in America in the coming years.

@Marie - You're right, when I think about it I'm not sure what it means to be post-racial either. That's why the question through me for a bit of a loop. Again, I do not think its about being "colorblind" like I said above. And Obama's election was definitely an inspiring accomplishment for the African American community and for our entire country. I'm not downplaying that at all.

Great post, Ry.

I'd like to think Gen Y isn't racist but you will always have that. You'll also have people that play up a race that has been oppressed in the past, which causes more of a divide.

I'd also like to point out that "a diverse group of professionally dressed twentysomethings" in Soho is, in a number of ways, not all that diverse. That's actually a pretty narrow subsection.

The question that was asked of you is quite interesting and hard to answer. There really is no black and white answer if you think about it. As many of you have said some voters were not focusing on his race but I do think that many more were. I guess he asked that question because this was the first election where Gen Y really helped to beef up the vote count. He may have seen it as we greatly influenced the decision and he's just wondering whether or not Gen Y was focused on race or change. It really is hard to differentiate those two because his race is a huge part of the change. McCain promised that he would makes some changes but his race, his attitude and the way he fit so neatly into the Bush Administration's mold did not sit right with most. I guess the panelist and even myself are just wondering what Gen Y means by being driven by change?

I personally am just waiting for all the changes, strategies and plans Obama stated that won so many over.

If we were truly in post-racial era, the hiring of a black man wouldn't be news....

I think defining "post-racial" is the first order of business. Then I think defining Gen-Y is the second. Is Gen-Y a concept and a badge worn in multiple countries, or it is mainly applied to fairly privelaged, educated, and heavily diversified populations currently in their 20's? Where do we get the greatest mix of people? In the US of course, or in major cities/countries that are more "cosmopolitan" or "westernized", and the values of integration and diversity are shared widely. In other countries where concentrations of single races or ethnicities are very high, you encounter considerable, and at times, very open racism.

A young Persian friend met tremendous racial tensions in mostly-white Sweden. While I'm white, I've been ethnically discriminated against within my own ethnic communities in the US and the countries of my ancestors for being "mixed" as I'm part Serbian and part Croatian. To most in the United States that means nothing. In the former Yugoslavia, you have to sometimes be careful not to reveal your ethnicity depending on which country you are in (vocabularly and customs vary per country, and ostracization of the Rom people is openly practiced.)

Even if the US Gen-Yers have a better chance of being post-racial, there is actually a lot of evidence there is voluntary re-segregation going on in neighborhoods and schools.

http://news.google.com/news?q=resegregation&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=U...

The news is full of stories like this.

It was crazy how the race discussion didn't really come out (and was even downplayed in interviews) until immediately after the election results. I, too, was blindsided and a little put-off by it all at first, but over time came to appreciate where everyone was coming from. Then after three days of coverage I was like, "OK, got it, people!"

I think another thing that's just as significant is that Barack Obama is a devoted, caring, involved father to two young girls. Hopefully he'll set a great example of fatherhood for all races.

I had a similar experience. I was surprised how much race was an issue being discussed immediately following the election, since for me it was never about race, it was about being excited for the first time ever to vote for a candidate I was inspired by. As I talked with older friends and family, though, I started to get it. And as I saw footage of Jesse Jackson again, shedding tears on election night, I realized how historically important this election must be for someone who marched with MLK and worked hard for civil rights for so many decades.

"Post-racial" however, is a BS term. Dr. Cornel West sums it up better than I can: About 1:20, he explains his thoughts on the concept of living in a "post-racial" America.
Definitely worth a watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5JPSLuuTDk

Here's the thing.

While many black Gen Yers are far less cynical about race than some of our other generational counterparts, it's still something that we're always aware of. We've never seen it as a hindrance in our personal lives, however, we can't help but acknowledge America's history of racial tension. You see, it is something that our elders NEVER LET US FORGET. We hear constant reminders of how our grandparents suffered through Jim Crow and the violence of the 60s so that we could enjoy all of the opportunities that we currently have.

When I shed tears at the election results, they were for my 80 year old grandmother who grew up in Selma, Alabama. She came North to Cleveland, OH in the 1940s in search of a better life, only to find that while racism wasn't on the books, as it was during Jim Crow, it was still very much in the behaviors and culture of Northern cities. The fact that she and others of her generation went from drinking out of a "colored" water fountain to earning voting rights to casting their ballots for a black man for the highest office in the country to then seeing that man become the President of the United States was impossible to avoid.

I shed tears for the generation of impoverished black children that will follow me. Children whose parents maybe aren't as attentive or aren't telling them that they can be great, because they don't believe it themselves. Those children finally can look up to SOMEONE that looks like them who is not an entertainer or an athlete. They won't know anything other than that in America, EVERYBODY can be as great as they want, as long as they work hard. Not all generations of black Americans can say the same.

Perhaps these emotions are lost on people who've never really had an emotional connection to our country's history of hatred. And I can't blame you for that. But for a lot of us, it was indeed that significant.

Jame-Ane - I hear what you're saying about how the media describes Obama; I understand that describing a black man or woman as "well-spoken" or "articulate" is often a huge insult, and I understand why. However, I feel like when Obama is described in such a way, it's because he's being compared to the current president rather than a tacit admission that they didn't expect a black man to be so "well educated" or a "great orator." It's that he stands in incredible contrast with George W. Bush. Maybe I'm granting certain people in the media too much leeway, but that's the way I've always read it. Dumb is out, smart is back in. Those qualities may be expected of most presidents, but we haven't had that in a while.

Racism is going to persist in one form or another. You profile other people when you walk through a busy street, onto a subway train, into a bus, through the city, and even at Church. Don't lie. Our society is a media-saturated one, and whenever we come in contact with another person, we consciously or subconsciously associate a media image or stereotype with that person. Don't tell me that you see a successful person when you see an African-American kid wearing baggy pants, a red t-shirt, and a dew rag. Obviously, I don't condone that sort of categorization, but we need to talk about it honestly if we are hope to truly make progress in the way our society treats other people.

I am a young person, and a minority, and I personally find it laughable that "Generation Y" kids think they've somehow surpassed racial, sexual, gender, ethnic, class, or national prejudice simply because we elected a Black president.

Are there any parts of your city that you do not visit because it holds communities of other people? I live on Capitol Hill in Seattle, and for as many visitors and tourists we get every day, I rarely see country folk on the hill hitting up the gay bars or chatting it up with homeless people.

If we are to honestly get beyond the way we typify people, we have to approach it openly and be conscious of how we subconsciously categorize people. Not just simply stand arrogantly and proclaim that we are truly a nation of equals.