Go Vote. There's Free Coffee and Doughnuts and and Ice Cream and Sex Toys in It if You Do

Early in the campaign, the black commentator Tavis Smiley took a lot of heat when he questioned all the rhetoric, much of it from white liberals, about Obama being “post-racial.” Smiley pointed out that there is “no such thing in America as race transcendence.” He is right of course. …

Obama doesn’t transcend race. He isn’t post-race. He is the latest chapter in the ever-unfurling American racial saga. It is an astonishing chapter. For most Americans, it seems as if Obama first came to dinner only yesterday. Should he win the White House on Tuesday, many will cheer and more than a few will cry as history moves inexorably forward.

But we are a people as practical as we are dreamy. We’ll soon remember that the country is in a deep ditch, and that we turned to the black guy not only because we hoped he would lift us up but because he looked like the strongest leader to dig us out.


It always bothers me to hear white people say a successful person has transcended race. There is no doubt in my mind that when they say it, they mean it as a compliment, as it is offered usually as an explanation for why they admire or like a person as much as they do. And I'd take it as praiseworthy, as a testament to the person's greatness, as a compliment if on occasion—or just once— they would say it in reference to a white person. They never do, which is why it bothers me. Because they do not, because they never say this about other white people, I can't see this as anything but a slur— because what it implies is that they cannot admire a black person or respect his success and still think of him as black.

So for god's sake, please stop saying this, and if you can't, please stop saying it to your black “friend,” unless you're prepared to explain to him (or her) why he hasn't transcended race or what you mean when you describe him as “black.” (Good luck with that.) Frankly, you'd be better off just spitting in his face.