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i just want to say, i believe we will never be a post-racial society. condi and colin are only superficial indicators of a post racial society. its all a facade, a way to stop allegations of racism. come on, look at michelle malkin - an asian american woman in favor of the WWII japanese internment camps. margaret cho had an interesting response to malkin which relates to this post-racial thingy you're talking about. check it out: http://margaretcho.com/blog/indefenseofmichellemalkin.htm

My favorite Margaret Cho quote:

Not since Salman Rushdie released The Satanic Verses have people been so pissed off at an author. I would love to issue a fatwah against her, but I am not sure how to go about it.

I know it's a joke, but more and more you see the far left siding with radical Islam. Note that Osama Bin Laden quoted Michael Moore in his last video. Notice very few film people talk about or even acknowledge the Van Gogh murder....see Team America - MM becoming a suicide bomber...prediction: we see more of this and it becomes less of a joke.

A couple of comments...I know we can one day live in a post-racial society because many of my relationships are post-racial. I grew up with an interesting group of close friends, a couple of Persians, a couple of Jewish, me the 1/2 Chinese guy, and a couple of white boys...not the most diverse (somehow blacks and hispanics get more credit for being diverse), but nonetheless, for me, a good opportunity to witness different cultures. And when I see people I know, and especially people I like and love, I never see them for their race - it becomes completely unimportant and if anything, a joke. That doesn't mean we weren't brutal to each other in middle school, with racial taunts. We were. That doesn't mean we all still have racial biases towards other people. We do. But what it does indicate to me is that it is possible to see beyond race and religion and difference towards something bigger - friendship and love and all that cheesy shit.

Before complaining about racism today, I think it is important to recognize how far this country has come over the years towards a post-racial society. We are not there yet, but over time, I've seen more progression than regression. We're the most racially integrated and diverse country on earth and it's only because of this that we are even able to have this discussion. People in the US complain about US racism, which is about the number of african americans admitted into elite colleges and the difficulty in some race groups getting home loans. Compare this to Saudi Arabia who won't let women vote, or Palestinians living in Israel without proper citizenship, or africans living in the Sudan being massacred because of their race, or Muslims in France who are not able to wear headscarves to school. (please don't say religion versus race, you know the same type of things apply)...Not to mention in most countries around the world they don't even have colleges, much less elite colleges or the opportunity to own homes at all. I love how people are so quick to throw the racism charge towards people with differing opinions right here in the US, but barely even acknowledge the much more rampant and horrible racism and sexism abroad. Saddam gases a group of people because of their race, the Kurds, and the far left doesn't think such behavior warrants punishment. Yet the same people think that someone with a smart argument for how affirmative action is either unjust or unbeneficial to minorities is racist.

I don't see how Condi and Colin are facades. No one is suggesting that because Condi is Secretary of State that we are now racially equal...it's just pointing out a rather fascinating fact that we don't blink and eye about today, but would have been impossible 40 or even 10 years ago.

I'm not sure that Michelle Malkin is racist. Why can't people pose provacative questions without being labeled as racist?

Let's look at racial profiling and Sept 11th (which is really the subject Malkin is talking about). Of all the airline security measures that could have prevented 9/11 (by the airlines...granted the FBI and CIA could have done a better job in the first place) is a search of "higher risk" people - that means Arab males between 18-40 years old. Performing a double check on that group by the airlines would have likely prevented part, if not all, of the 9/11 hijackers. I'm not sure if such a policy would be the best idea - but at the very least, such a policy ought to be worthy of discussion without fear of being labeled immediately as racist and therefore out of the question. Believe it or not, there are more important issues that racism. Security for one...for instance - would you rather be racist or dead from a plane hijacking - obviously, one would rather be racist. But that is an unfair example. Would you, however, rather be "racist" and feel secure knowing that Arab males not born in the US between 18-40 were being double checked at airline security? I'm not sure, that's a question people ought to ask themselves....and if I were such an Arab male, I would likely be hurt and offended by such a policy, but I would also understand why such a policy existed.

My friend, who is Persian, told me he fully expected to be stopped at airline security. He said to me, "they would be fucking stupid not to check me." Sadly, he's right.

I read a book about how Arab's are portrayed in the media that was printed in 1999, prior to 9/11. The author pointed out that the majority of terrorists in films were Arab, but that only a handful of Arabs had ever been prosecuted for terrorism in the United States. There were a larger number of white supremicists and Tim McVeigh like folks who had been prosecuted. He pointed out these facts to demonstrate that Arabs were being unjustly portrayed as terrorists in Hollywood films. I look back at this book and think to myself - what was a bigger problem:

A) That Arabs were unjustly portrayed as terrorists, when other groups were actually more active terrorists. In a sense, we were overreacting to this idea of the Arab terrorist.

OR

B) That we underreacted to the idea of the Islamic terrorist, that we did not take the problem seriously enough.

Post-9/11, the answer is obvious to me, although, I think many people still think A) is the correct answer.