The term ‘post race’ has been increasingly bandied about in the lead up to today’s Presidential election in the USA—a google search currently produces 126k hits. Much of the commentary refers to Obama as post race and thus someone white Americans are not afraid of—they are reassured by him as a non-angry black man. For me, whilst a number of the pieces reflect on the challenges of growing up black in America and express a level of awareness, much of it seems more like a means for getting white America settled and comfortable with racism… One piece refers to Francis Fukuyama—someone I would not…

#whiteness #hope #structural violence #post race

Today I listened to an interview with the outspoken US commentator David Horrowittz. He is a self described moderate conservative – I am not sure what the moderate refers to. He considers his very vocal and forceful critic of the ‘left’, which encompasses, it seems, everyone espousing a semblance of progressive ideas, to be based on passion. The left is mistaken and he adopts the tactics of the radical left in attacking them. The left is ‘a religion and delusional’… He was a member of the radical left in his youth, later converting to conservatism, apparently in response to political assassina…

#rationalisations #structural violence