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I could care less if the president was pink. I want someone who puts Americans first. You know government for the people and by the people. Now tell me all the elected officials that meet this condition. If you are like me, you can not name one.

I want someone who is going to stop us going to war.

I believe we are witnessing the modern equivilent of the fall of the Roman Empire here. At the rate we are going we will become a third world country. I cant beleive the mis-informed people who prefer spending trillions of dollars in wars instead of spending it here in the US on infrastructure, poverty and a better life for all of us.

While we waste all this money and drive our economy into the toilet Europe and China's economies march on.

Why wouldn't there be white voters who view their interests, culture, belief systems, etc. through the prism of racial identity? There are plenty of black voters who do, including Jeremiah Wright and (according to a recent column) the author of this blog.

There is an illusion, I think, that one can separate "good race" from "bad race"--that is, that the nation can retain race as a source of community, social cohesion, etc., while divesting it of its divisive, tribalist properties. I doubt that's possible. So long as a race constitutes the dominant critical category through which American society is observed, it will continue to serve both communal and tribalist functions--for both whites and blacks.

Provocative and interesting observation by brian444...

So much of the time it's "us vs. them" in black/white interactions. There are a few times when I've seen this disappear on any appreciable scale.

1. 9/11
2. Among Armed Forces personnel and families
3. Among American overseas
4. NASA launches
5. Mountain climbing
6. Natural disasters or accidents
7. Assasinations/deaths of beloved Americans

I'm sure one can come up with more examples, but what is common among all these is that another "them" or "it" transcends the black/white tribalism.

The question naturally arises: "How do we transcend black/white tribalism on a day-to-day basis without invoking a natural disaster or moving to Europe?

Why Europe?

There is as big of a race problem there as here.

I did not say that very well. It's been my experience that when Americans meet other Americans in places outside of America, they tend to see each other as "American" instead of black/ white. The country identification transcends race identification.
Brian 444 got me thinking about how human beings are tribalistic--and the tribe categories are varied...and they change, depending on the circumstances.

Many years ago when I was a kid, remember watching a Star Trek episode where Kirk et. al. went to a planet where everyone was at war. He didn't understand why people were fighting each other. Everyone was half black and half white and they looked all the same to him. "Why are you at war?" he asked. It turns out that half the people were black on the right side and the other half were black on the left side. That's what divided them. At the time, it was interesting commentary on race and I still occasionally think about how we divide ourselves in ways that might not even be obvious to a visitor from another place.

How do we transcend that tribalism? Americans do it on occasion. How do we do it on a day-to-day basis?

Personally, I think the day-to-day scenario isn't especially bleak. I was downtown at the bicentennial celebration today. It was a mixed crowd, and in the natural course of things I ended up talking with probably 10 African Americans--about the singer, kids, jerk chicken, lite brites, icee sales, the weather, the proper way to wear tricorner hats.

(The N&R was handing out green foam tricorner hats. When I put one on, I found myself strangely attracted to tax increases and big government. It was wierd.)

I would suggest that the most racially divisive activity in America today is probably watching the news, reading the paper (whichever paper), or consuming other forms of media. That's where people build and reiterate racialist attitudes.

Brian:
I agree. We seem to do much better one-on-one. And we have so much more in common than not ... in my humble opinion.

... For instance, in our appreciation for Classic Trek, as Thoughts for Your Penny points out.

Well, obviously I would have to disagree about "classic" Star Trek. Even though I somehow ended up married to a woman who insists on keeping me posted on the latest plot developments on Battlestar Galactica.

We saw the finest minds of the current N&R generation starving, hystercial, naked as they struggled with those who would use and misuse race in G-Boro city politics, and ultimately do or say...nothing.

I find it interesting that whenever I'm in the midst of a discussion that revolves around origins and I'm asked "what" I am and I say American I'm always pressed to tell where my people came from originally. Well, my father's people came to North America in the 1640s and my mother's in the 1750s; I ask how long does someone's ancestors have to be in a place before they are "of" that place. Frankly, while I still have family in both Scotland and what is now Belgium and have visited both, I really don't have much in common with them culturally.

I am reminded of the Danes who saved nearly all the Jews in their country during WW2 because they took the stance that the Jewish people were Danes who happened to be Jewish rather than that they were Jews who happened to be Danes. At first it doesn't seem like that much of a difference, but the subtlety of the difference becomes profound when put into practice. And it doesn't gloss over the diversity of culture or the celebration thereof . . . it just puts nationality, in the sense of being neighbors, ahead of ancestral ethnicity.

Brian:
Kudos to your wife, at least. She's knows good TV when she sees it. You married well.

I recall black soldiers hoping for that very ideal when returning from World War II.
I also recall the hurt a black soldier felt when he couldn't enter a whites-only bus terminal even when German POWs were granted access.

"Eighteen percent of white voters in Pennsylvania admitted that race was a factor in their decision."

I've seen these stats and read the Post article as well. To your credit you didn't slant it this way Mr. Johnson, but I've seen some with an obvious bias depict racism as being solely perpetrated by Republicans and use this data and the Post article to support their argument.

Problem is the Penna primaries were closed, so Republicans would likely not have made up the 18%.

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Perhaps we ran into each other Saturday brian444, we also attended the downtown celebration. There was a good mix of people present and everyone seemed to have a good time. My son and I were kicking a soccer ball around and all of a sudden the "2-0-0" guys came by to play!! Immediately all kinds of kids and adults came to join the fun. It was a memorable moment.

My dad and I watched the original Star Trek together every week. It was the most exciting show on TV back in the day. I still laugh at the memory of "The Trouble With Tribbles" and I haven't even seen the episode in about 20 years.

And yes, Kirk usually got the girl or the girl died. At my young age, I also found it strange that his relationships never lasted more than one or two shows. Didn't he miss the women after he left each planet?? Furthermore, if an unknown, nervous-looking crew member popped up in an episode, I knew he/she was as good as dead.

After all was said and done though, the show was about friends, honor, and high ideals and dreams. What's not to like? Yep, I was one lucky kid indeed.