Kiwi

Today in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr was shot dead on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

41 years on, what do you think of the race-relations in America today?

DIVUS IVLIVS

I actually picked up a book in a bookstore today, entitled "Only in America", and naturally it was about Barack Obama and his election.

And there you go. Some 67 million Americans of every age and race came together and elected an African-American to become the leader of the Free World. That says something all on its own.

Toltec

Why do they call it 'free' when it's quite expensive actually?

tjadams

Race relations are still an issue, but gladly, not to the point of the 1960s violence. Race is still an issue & I believe always will be.
There are extreme double standards that will never fade into the air when it comes to race & our country will always be divided into different camps.
Race is pertinent everyday when discussing BHO, who is always described as the first black president when in essence he is of mixed-race; people see color.
I say judge a person, of any color or sex, on their deeds & hopefully we can move past seeing color at all.

Heidi XX

Not really.There still alot of race hate towards Ombama! I mention on another forum how i like ombama and i said how good Obama was for America,and alot of white Americans jump down my throat making sure i knew that they hated him and they never voted for me (cause he's black).Nort all white americans voted in a black president.
For one thing i know,he's not doing any worst than any white American presidents!
out of 67 million Americans,morjuraty would have been ethic Americans that voted Obama in.
I can just tell by how white men Americans respond to me about obama,and it seems most of the white men did not want Obama in.
this to me means race hate.

DIVUS IVLIVS

I'm not sure where they're getting it from, but Obama won over more of the White Vote than McCain did.

To say that all the White People voted for McCain and all the Minorites voted for Obama is really just a stereotype. Obama's canvass was in a way very representative of America as a whole - lots of white faces, and just as many black, Asian, Hispanic, the list goes on.

Likewise, plenty of minorities voted for McCain too.

There are always going to be a few brainless sheep, and there are always going to be a few haters, but lets not them distract us from what is a real achievement.

tjadams

By the fact that there are even statistics, claiming to be of any accuracy, dissecting how people voted, is another example of how race relations are in the US. Were each elections of the past so minutely scrutinized on how the races voted? It will be a glorious day in history when there is a Hispanic, an Asian, a woman and American-Indian president to reflect the true diversity of the US population.

DIVUS IVLIVS

My view is that America as a whole should simply be proud of the achievement. Yes, the country has some way to go yet, but look on the bright side.

The book I picked up made what I thought was a very good point. If John McCain had prevailed in the election, what would people in countries around the world have been saying? "Look at how racist America still is". But Obama won, and now people in those countries ask a different question: "Could we elect our own Obama?"

What other country in the Western World at the moment could be said to have come even close to electing a minority to their highest office?

America has taken a step forward here. The least to do would be to be proud of that step, then take another one.

And all of this is coming from someone who is not even American :lol

tjadams

If people of the world were not tuned into what each candidate proposed, & based their political assumptions that the election was race tainted, then they need to a serious dose of enlightenment.
Each country has its own unique inhabitants & shouldn't be looking up to the US as what should they be doing or aping our actions. Especially when it comes to politics.
Each person is entitled to their opinion as I think Tony Blair was the best Prime Minister since Churchill.

Lucius

I think out-and-out racists form a smaller percentage of the US population today than 41 years ago. I don't know how one would compile any reliable data on that. It's more of a feeling or hunch.

But as the soft-core easy-going racism that one learns at his mother's knee fades into history, the hard-core haters form a greater and greater percentage of the whole number of racists.

The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps track of all sorts of hate organizations.