President Obama and the New American Racial Contract

Let’s face it, just a few months ago, if you would have asked any number of African Americans if they really believed that they just might actually live to see a Black American President, you could be certain that almost if not all to a one they would have responded with a resounding —“No!” Today, most of the country still seems to remain somewhat mystified by this latest example of the nation’s lingering racial divide.Nevertheless, whether real or simply imagined, this wide-spread sentiment has existed as a consequence of the heretofore ubiquitous nature of racism within most Black people’s lives. Whether one cares to acknowledge its presence or not, this statistic alone is proof enough that it has played a powerful role nonetheless.However, one should not expect for this antiquated yet still rather vigorous social disease to be instantly cured simply as a result of a Black man’s election to the Presidency of the United States. The true psychopathology of American racism is like a virus that has been taken for granted for quite some time. Still till this day, racism remains a somewhat shrouded aspect of the culture, like some deformed child that we all have kept somewhere hidden in the basement. We all know that it is there, but we really not supposed to talk about it.

The psychological distance between the two however, between Black skepticism, and White befuddlement is the veil that shrouds Black life from the world outside of this inimitable community. Nonetheless, the election of a Black man to the highest office in the land has totally demolished the central pillar of the once perceptibly indomitable racist principle. All of a sudden, gone forever is the ritual illusion of Black racial inferiority and what is left in its stead is the New American Racial Contract.Read More: