Eracism...well, maybe not quite yet.

In a recent CNN.com article by Leonard Pitts Jr, we read that many Americans are divided on just how much progress the land of the free and home of the brave has made on the issue of racism. And how are we divided? You guessed it - along racial lines.

"Psychology professor Richard Eibach was reported last year in the
Washington Post as having found that in judging racial progress, white people
and black ones tend to use different yardsticks. Whites use the yardstick of how
far we have come from the nation we used to be. Blacks use the yardstick of how
far we have yet to go to be the nation we ought to be.

The most complete picture, of course, requires both
measures. But who can be surprised that blacks and whites each tend to gravitate
toward the measure that is most forgiving of their individual groups, that
shoves the onus for change off on the other? The black yardstick, after all,
leaves black people no obligation other than to demand justice and equality from
white people. The white yardstick requires of white people only that they exhort
black people to become more self-reliant and take more responsibility for their
own problems."

Come on people! Can't we even agree on how we measure our disagreement?!?!

I have a yard stick...and it's a creamy, buffy, khaki, wheatish, tan thing...

...much like this one. Neither black nor white.

But there was some good news. Apparently, according to Pitts, the Government can't do everything...

"African-Americans do not, after all, need its policy suggestions to
fix many of their most intractable problems. We do not need a government program to turn off the TV, realizing it's hardly coincidental that people who watch more television per capita have poorer academic performance. We do not need federal monies to tell our children to wait until they are married or, at the
very least, in stable, long-term relationships, before they bring babies into
the world. We do not need Washington's input to know we must quit allowing our
community to be defined by a coarse popular culture whose words and images are
indistinguishable from the Ku Klux Klan's."

But what about the Obama factor? I, along with a few million others, was justifiably proud of our nation for voting in #44. Still - we all knew the problem of racism wouldn't be solved after the party was over on Jan 20th. Candidate Obama had to have security earlier than any other candidate in history and faced multiple racist threats along the way. In addition, I think we all fully expect the righties to come down hard on affirmative action policies as soon as they finish forgetting how they got us into our financial crisis.

The real question is when will we come to realize what affects one... will affect the other. Progress for any group means progress for the entire group. Struggles for even the smallest of minorities produces transferable challenges for all. We are truly woven together no matter where the tracks run thru a community.

So, how about a better apparatus for measuring....something like this?

Or, instead of something linear....a Mosaic. Where we recognize that each unique piece is needed to make the entire picture comprehendable. It's the scope and breath of a larger work we all participate in...no matter what particular color adorns our personal tile.

Ivan L