Still no post-racial society

cently coming to a close, analysis of our society’s current state of racism comes with a dismal conclusion.

Although pop culture may allude to a vast change from racial acceptance of the past, beneath the surface we’re really a very similar society to the one in which many of Black History Month’s honorees lived and pushed to change.

It’s been more than 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech before thousands of people at the Lincoln Memorial.

It’s not a hard concept to grasp, yet more than five decades later it’s apparently still challenging to implement.

One day a school cafeteria staff will have enough common sense to understand that creating a school lunch menu of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collard greens and apples claiming to be a tribute to Black History Month is offensive.

One day a student section at a high school basketball game will have enough respect for the opposing team, composed primarily of African American players, to not encourage jungle safari-themed costumes.

We are so far from living in a post-racial society, it’s almost scary.

Unlike many analysts and experts who provide laundry lists of reasons why certain groups feel more entitled than others or why exactly racism is still so prevalent in our culture, my problems and irritation with the subject matter come quite plainly.

A lot of it is just a blatant lack of common sense.

I don’t believe the cafeteria staff meant to offend their student population by tying fried chicken to black culture.

However, common sense would have predicted it.

It’s a possibility those high school students actually selected the jungle theme to dig at a widely used racial slur.

The scum bags of the world will continue to harp on irrelevant, untruthful and unnecessary racial topics until they turn blue in the face.

Unfortunately, that will probably never change.

However, common sense would have told those students that if they were purposefully dressing in a way to insult and offend the opposing team and fans, their school would have to take action.


Racism is an ever-present issue. We all know that.

There are millions of reasons people give for the actions that come out as racism, and though I don’t believe any of them are credible, they’re constantly reoccurring.

However, its reoccurrence can be considerably consolidated if people would just apply a little bit of intelligence to possible actions and decisions beforehand.

I’m tired of reading stories like the ones previously mentioned because of how dim-witted they really are.

There’s truly no excuse for it.

If common sense really is the genius of humanity, then let’s start applying it to prevent events like this from happening and stick to themeless chicken nuggets and soggy fries in the lunch line.

cnmcelwa@indiana.edu
@clairemc_IDS