Race is nothing. Culture and character are everything.
I cannot for the life of me understand some people’s fascination with race. Skin pigmentation is such a superficial thing and yet we make government policy based on that pigmentation. Crazy.
There’s this big hoopla because we might have our “first black president” here in the U.S. First off, I’ve decided that Barack Obama is white. See my posting: Why Is Obama Block? from a year ago.
Secondly, though I understand why electing a black president is important to many people for its symbolic value, I think their fervor is misplaced. If he were, say, the first Muslim presidential nominee, now that would be something. Being black does not define you and drive your actions, but being Muslim certainly does. Blackness does not affect one’s character; religion most definitely does.
Dr. Martin Luther King once dreamed of a future where people would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. And here we are, 40+ years later, declaring that the election of Barack Obama would be momentous, not for his character, but for the color of his skin.
I share Dr. King’s dream of a color-blind society but government policy is working in the opposite direction. I’m afraid his dream will never come true.