Practice Spreading Tolerance

Obama’s presidential win is a sign of progress, but it also could lead to conflict

December 18, 2008 RSS Feed Print
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The election of Barack Obama as president led many people to celebrate what they saw as a sign of progress on race relations in America. But it also caused the servers of two major white supremacist groups to crash because of excess traffic. "We don't live in a post-racial society, despite the very serious and important accomplishments," says Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which monitors the activities of hate groups. "Historically, a major advance is followed by a backlash."

What to do? Don't be silent. Short-circuit racial slurs by speaking up, and step in to challenge biased assumptions. Encourage local schools and community groups to work with organizations specializing in such programs as the Teaching Tolerance project and the Anti-Defamation League, among others.

And remain optimistic. "The overall arc [of progress] is positive," says Potok. "But we have got to remain vigilant."

Tags:
racism,
Barack Obama,
race

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ultram liquid of OK 3:09AM February 03, 2010

And the previous comments are from obvious bigots. USNWR was the only magazine we had in our home growing up, I was raised very conservative and very Christian. I remember reading all about how terrible Jesse Jackson is and how it might not be that bad having Pat Robertson as president, and oh yeah, how important it is that we build a '500 Ship Navy', another ten thousand nukes and the fantasy missile defense shield.

US News and World Report suddenly proposing tolerance is like....let me think of a good one....the pope suddenly promoting orgies.

This is a terrible magazine. Don't get me started on George Will and Thomas Sewell's writing, they wouldn't have made it into our high school newspaper.

I'll say this simply because I know this readership isn't the most academic/literate:

Society is about how different kinds of people get along, not about how we can make everybody become similar to ourselves. Gays having anal sex and people not going to church are YOUR CHURCH'S PROBLEMS, not America's.

America's problems are quagmires, bribery, deficits, printing money and spending half of it on weapons when there's no existential threat to our borders.

Also, the stuck-up rich people and religious bigots who control the republican party and Fox News, and USNWR, who have happily shut up about these problems for decades at a time while Reagan and the Bushs were in office.

And stop using the term 'PC', it really is just a fancy phrase for polite. Don't you want to be polite? I'm not sure about it with you people....we'll see in the following comments won't we?

Jeremy of MO 1:40PM December 02, 2009

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