# Dispatches from post-racial America. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 9, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618 "2015-03-09T17:45:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/21 "2015-03-10T02:21:35Z")
I wonder who posted the video? He sent it to a Black student org and the student paper. It must be common knowledge now, at least amongst the fraternity. That dude must have balls the size of church bells. Good on him. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/22 "2015-03-10T02:27:48Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I’m amazed the OP hasn’t been called a hypersensitive race-baiter for starting such a provocative thread. > > :consults rolodex of black Dopers…not finding **mhendo’s** name anywhere in it: > > Oh wait, never mind. Amazement withdrawn. LOL. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/23 "2015-03-10T02:38:18Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > This thing bothers me a whole lot. I’m absolutely certain that that chanting was a routine thing. The fact that they were perfectly fine being recorded in this day and age of ubiquitous social media underscores this. > > But what bothers me a lot more is the fact that people will watch that video and return to their regularly scheduled programming of downplaying and hand-waving away racism. The next time they hear someone complaining about racial discrimination, they won’t remember the glee on those boys faces as they chanted about lynching niggers. No, their reflex will be to talk about minority hypersensitivity and Al Sharpton. They see those guys and see stupid frat “bros”. I see those guys and see future managers, CEOs, jury members, teachers, principals, city councilmen, senators, and judges. I see someone who might sell me a car or a house one day–someone who’ll try to take advantage of me because all they see is a dirty nigger rather than a human being. White people can afford to believe these are a small, insignificant minority of the population. Black people already know better. > > This story will be gone from mainstream America’s consciousness by the end of the week. I’m seeing this a bit differently. I mean, I agree that this will be forgotten very quickly and in a week someone on the Dope is going to say something racist and then defend it completely, but if you watch the video the frat boys weren’t ok with being recorded. if you look to the right you’ll see a girl record and the person sitting next to her tries to grab the phone. I believe her video is up somewhere and you can see the “oh shit” look on his face. They knew the outcome of their being recording. They knew that chanting really racist shit looks bad. They still did they. They didn’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/24 "2015-03-10T03:12:02Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > I wonder who posted the video? He sent it to a Black student org and the student paper. It must be common knowledge now, at least amongst the fraternity. > > That dude must have balls the size of church bells. > > Good on him. They were chanting on a bus full of non-frat members. It could have been anybody on the bus. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/25 "2015-03-10T03:14:41Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > They were chanting on a bus full of non-frat members. It could have been anybody on the bus. Still takes huge gonads. The frat boys know damn well who it was ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/26 "2015-03-10T06:02:02Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > As we all know, the election of Barack Obama clearly demonstrates that the United States is a post-racial society. We might have had a few problems in the past, but they’re all behind us now. Color-blindness is the new norm, and completely justifies measures like eliminating affirmative action and invalidating key sections of the Voting Rights Acts. Americans, from Stephen Colbert to the man on the street, simply don’t see race anymore. > > As clear evidence of this dramatic shift in the national culture, i give you [the members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, at the University of Oklahoma](http://gawker.com/sae-frat-bros-sing-racist-song-about-when-black-people-1690214205).The fact that dozens of university students, all together on a bus, are willing to sing this song together just shows how far we’ve come. > > U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! > > Please feel free to add further examples of America’s post-racial harmony to this thread. Hey, it made the news in Melbourne Aus! Maybe post-racial America can send a handbook to post-racial Australia outlining the do’s and don’ts of being post-racial. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/27 "2015-03-10T07:02:02Z")
I also applaud the Universities quick action. To me the bigger question is, however, how soon can we get rid of fraternities? I know, I know someone is going to show many many examples of fraternities doing charity work, theres black fraternities, and fraternities that accept members of all races blah blah blah. Thats great. Form a club, off campus. Need to make lifelong friends? Read Dale Carnegie. Its 2015 and creepy rituals involving binge drinking and puking, physically and sometimes sexually abusive hazing rituals all seem to have little place in the context of a 2015 education. Lets not even get into the rapes. And theres racism, on top of that. Colleges got rid of there flying wedge in 1905, and saved many lives. Its 2015, maybe time to weight the costs versus the few benefits of having a fraternity system on campuses. The school I went to was once one of the biggest party schools in the 70s, then disbanded frat houses in the late 70s and early 80s, and not only survived, but thrived as a n institution. Want to make friends and influence people? Want to better your college life? Get a hobby. If you have to join a frat to have a social life, you are a loser, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/28 "2015-03-10T07:26:49Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Fortunately, a country is not defined by the antics of a bunch of knucklehead frat boys. And just as it’s silly to argue that the election of Obama proves anything wrt eliminating AA or the other things mentioned in the OP, it is also silly to argue that these singing idiots prove anything wrt the need for AA going forward. That is an argument that stands or falls on its own merits, which lie well outside the two anecdotes in the OP. Yeah, it’s not like [there is a commuinity](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/justice-department-finds-pattern-of-police-bias-and-excessive-force-in-ferguson.html?_r=0) rife with systematic institutional racism from the police and city hall. Or that [it happens in even more communities](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/us/ferguson-became-symbol-but-bias-knows-no-border.html). Nope, racism in America is limited to a few frat boys in Oklahoma! Thanks for clearing that up! ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/29 "2015-03-10T12:41:21Z")
A reporter on CNN, spoke with a student who said they were surprised that it was SAE; they knew of other frats that were far more racist, and thought that the university should investigate more. Good for the response from the University’s President and the fraternity coming down swiftly on this. No dithering, just a crushing blow to these idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/30 "2015-03-10T13:26:51Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > This thing bothers me a whole lot. I’m absolutely certain that that chanting was a routine thing. The fact that they were perfectly fine being recorded in this day and age of ubiquitous social media underscores this. > > But what bothers me a lot more is the fact that people will watch that video and return to their regularly scheduled programming of downplaying and hand-waving away racism. The next time they hear someone complaining about racial discrimination, they won’t remember the glee on those boys faces as they chanted about lynching niggers. No, their reflex will be to talk about minority hypersensitivity and Al Sharpton. They see those guys and see stupid frat “bros”. I see those guys and see future managers, CEOs, jury members, teachers, principals, city councilmen, senators, and judges. I see someone who might sell me a car or a house one day–someone who’ll try to take advantage of me because all they see is a dirty nigger rather than a human being. White people can afford to believe these are a small, insignificant minority of the population. Black people already know better. > > This story will be gone from mainstream America’s consciousness by the end of the week. Right, the boys will have learned _nothing_. They will blather on about “PC”. We were shut down because of political correctness, they will say. Black people can say nigger, why can’t we? It is so naive to say this is just a few frat boys, and not read about what’s happening in Ferguson and other places and not realize it’s still endemic in our culture, it’s just gone underground. You know what all this does? It makes me grateful not to have been born black! How sad it that? I always knew there were huge portions of America that were still racist, but the last couple of years have really taught me that white people and black people live in totally different worlds. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/31 "2015-03-10T13:36:20Z")
And, so, I was thinking about the above, and I was reminded that at my SO’s office, there is a man who literally walks around talking about how this is “white America” and “Christian America” and everyone should remember that after all, white people founded this land. This bothers me. No one else says anything, they just sit silently. Here is the bothersome thing about this. My SO just happens to be ethnically Chinese. He’s not Chinese in any manner except through accident of birth. He was born here. His parents have been here since their teens and twenties. He doesn’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin. Hates Communist China. Has no interest in visiting. Etc. His parents are some nominal form of Christian. But just because he has almond eyes, some white guy thinks it’s perfectly OK to walk around spouting this sort of smack and no other white people say anything. It’s sooooo easy to say “Go to HR” but I don’t really believe HR will do a damn thing, and neither does he. They aren’t there for your protection. This is just one little tiny taste of what black people have to live through every single day. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/32 "2015-03-10T13:36:27Z")
There was never a reckoning in America about the incredible brutality and oppression that black people experienced, and that the rest of America profited from. Ending slavery, and the Civil Rights movement, were great steps forward, but they weren’t a reckoning – they weren’t reparations, and they weren’t ‘Truth and Reconciliations’. Ta-Nehisi Coates has really swayed my thinking on this over the last few years. Hugely significant parts of America’s wealth was built (and stolen) on the blood, sweat, and tears of black people, and it wasn’t just slavery. [Redlining](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining), as just one relatively recent example, amounted to a continuous wealth transfer from black areas (and black Americans) to white areas and white Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/33 "2015-03-10T13:58:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Fortunately, a country is not defined by the antics of a bunch of knucklehead frat boys. Some of those knucklehead frat boys will be elected officials in a few years (assuming this video doesn’t follow them into politics.) Major state universities are breeding grounds for the leaders of state governments, and fraternities are heavy concentrations of those people. That is not to say that every American is some bro yelling about niggers on a party bus, of course, but I can assure you that there are any number of Oklahomans quietly muttering to themselves about how the boys were right, and even more asking what the big deal is. - Former knucklehead frat boy ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/34 "2015-03-10T14:12:23Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > And, so, I was thinking about the above, and I was reminded that at my SO’s office, there is a man who literally walks around talking about how this is “white America” and “Christian America” and everyone should remember that after all, white people founded this land. > > This bothers me. No one else says anything, they just sit silently. I’m surprised he’s so open about it. My wife is white and she’ll tell me about the white guy who’ll go up and talk to her about how lazy minorities are and how they refuse to do anything to help themselves, blah blah blah. They stop once she tells them about her Black husband. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/35 "2015-03-10T14:23:21Z")
> [@russian\_heel](#): > > To me the bigger question is, however, how soon can we get rid of fraternities? :dubious: Look, once you talk about getting rid of fraternities, that will open the way to talk about getting rid of sororities. That is a fundamental existential threat to the space-time fabric of the Porniverse. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/36 "2015-03-10T14:31:44Z")
According to James Loewen’s book _Sundown Towns_, kids raised in such towns can be strikingly open and naïve about expressing racist views, telling racist jokes, and not caring who hears them. He citers several examples in his book. The behavior captured on that Frat bus looks exactly the same. the University of Oklahoma is in Norman, Oklahoma. According to Loewen’s website, Norman was once a Sundown Town (although it no longer is). One report even claims that it had the classic “Don’t let the sun go down on you in this town” signs warning blacks to be out of town until 1965: > **[Norman - History and Social Justice](https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundowntown/norman-ok/)** > [@](#): > > “I’m told that Norman had ‘sundown’ signs on either > end of Main Street until 1965 and removed them > only because Look Magazine made overtures about > awarding ‘All American City’ status.” > -University of Oklahoma professor > [@](#): > > When I arrived in Norman in 1961, not one rooming > house in Norman would rent to blacks. Married > black students had to live in the university’s > extremely inadequate married people’s housing or > they didn’t bring their families to Norman and lived > in the dorms." > [@](#): > > In 1934, Dr. George Cross came to Norman from > South Dakota to assume the presidency of the > University of Oklahoma. “The salesman in the store, > knowing that I was new, undertook to tell me a few > things that he thought would be useful to me. One > thing he said that really jolted me was, ‘You’ll never > have to worry about a nigger problem in Norman.’ I > looked at him inquiringly. He said, ‘We have an > unwritten law that niggers can’t be in Norman after > sundown.’ > I said, ‘Well, just how do you enforce an unwritten > law?’ And he said, ‘Oh, we don’t have to enforce it. > the niggers understand the situation and they > don’t stay in Norman after sundown.’” > -from Dream Makers, Dream Breakers, The World > of Justice Thurgood Marshall, Carl T. Rowan, Even if the students were not originally from Norman, there are quite a few former sundown towns in Oklahoma: > **[Oklahoma Archives - History and Social Justice](https://justice.tougaloo.edu/location/oklahoma/)** > > In the 1870s and 80s, many African Americans fled the former Confederacy and settled in Oklahoma. But by the time Oklahoma attained statehood in 1907, Democrats were in control and towns went sundown all over the state. And even after such towns 'open up" to non-whites, traces of the culture still remain. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/37 "2015-03-10T14:48:33Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > And, so, I was thinking about the above, and I was reminded that at my SO’s office, there is a man who literally walks around talking about how this is “white America” and “Christian America” and everyone should remember that after all, white people founded this land. > > This bothers me. No one else says anything, they just sit silently. > > Here is the bothersome thing about this. My SO just happens to be ethnically Chinese. He’s not Chinese in any manner except through accident of birth. He was born here. His parents have been here since their teens and twenties. He doesn’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin. Hates Communist China. Has no interest in visiting. Etc. His parents are some nominal form of Christian. > > But just because he has almond eyes, some white guy thinks it’s perfectly OK to walk around spouting this sort of smack and no other white people say anything. > > It’s sooooo easy to say “Go to HR” but I don’t really believe HR will do a damn thing, and neither does he. They aren’t there for your protection. > > This is just one little tiny taste of what black people have to live through every single day. It’s not fair to blast HR’s ineffectiveness without at least giving them a chance to address an issue. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/38 "2015-03-10T15:38:35Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > The problem is that, while a few knucklehead frat boys might not define the nation, the sum of incidents like this suggest that racial discrimination and racial antipathy are still incredibly important components of American culture. If the incident described in the OP were even surprising, there might be less need for the thread, but i posted it precisely because it’s actually not that shocking or surprising to me. It’s of a piece with a whole variety of racial problems, from knucklehead frat boys through to the institutionalized racism of some law enforcement departments. To be honest, i’m actually far less worried about a few idiots singing “Nigger” on a bus than i am about what happens when those idiots graduate and enter the workforce. Some of them end up on police forces, or in positions of authority elsewhere in society. > > And while the argument for or against affirmative action might deserve to be assessed on its own merits, the fact is that, for some debaters, those merits include an assertion about racial equality. Some of them argue that America has now essentially fixed its historical problems of racial inequity and therefore affirmative action is simply an outmoded relic based on a social order that has disappeared. I think that there are good arguments to be made for and against affirmative action, but an argument that it needs to go because it addresses a non-existent problem (an argument i’ve heard many times) constitutes either wishful thinking or willful ignorance. Can’t disagree with that, but that’s quite a different spin than the one you put in your OP. And one need only look at the response this video got to see that, in many ways, things have changed. Frankly, we’re never going to end racism on the personal level, which is what we’re seeing here. If that is the bar to ending AA, then you might as well carve it in stone. Rather, the type of racism we need to eliminate post haste is what we see in the justice system (incarceration of disproportionate numbers of black men, racial bias in policing a la Ferguson PD, etc.). The frat boys are toast (could be that they will pay for this for the rest of their lives). The Laws and Police Departments are still with us. > [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > Grow a fucking spine. Make love to a fucking cactus. And the “funny” thing is that your idea of growing a spine is to not dare to disagree with the general consensus on this MB. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/39 "2015-03-10T15:53:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Can’t disagree with that, but that’s quite a different spin than the one you put in your OP. Well, if you understood the “spin” in the OP as anything other than intentional hyperbole—something that i thought would have been given away by the opening sentence—then i’m afraid you’ve sort of missed the point. I posted what i thought were clearly hyperbolic statements in order to make a serious point about the persistence of racial prejudice. For the record, in case you missed it in my last post, i don’t believe that the validity of affirmative action (or of the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the Voting Rights Act, for that matter) actually have any connection with the frat boy incident. I agree with you about law enforcement and the justice system. I also agree that the response to the incident described in the OP demonstrates that things have changed. I would never deny that. I think that there have been massive and important steps forward in race relations in America over the past decades. But while these frat boys might indeed be toast, how many others like them are there in positions of power and authority in American companies and government and law enforcement at all levels of society? I’ll bet there are plenty who feel quite similarly, but who aren’t clueless enough to sing songs about niggers in public spaces. It might not be fair to point to this incident and make a claim that it generalizes to America as a whole, but i would argue that, like the proverbial tip of the iceberg, this represents the visible face of a phenomenon that is much larger than many Americans would like to admit. And we can’t disconnect it from the institutional problems of law enforcement and the justice system, precisely because our institutions sometimes reflect the worst parts of our society just as easily as they reflect the best. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618/40 "2015-03-10T16:01:47Z")
I’ve posted this before but Matt Taibbi’s visit to a Tea Party meeting, and interview of Tea Party intellectual Ron, demonstrates how their objections to Obama have nothing to do with race: [QUOTE=Matt Taibbi, published in Rolling Stone] … Ron says his problem with Obama is the integrity thing. “He exaggerates too much,” Ron says. “He’s not honest.” “OK,” I say. “What does he exaggerate about?” “Well, like that time he was saying he had a white mother and a white grandmother,” he says. I ask him how this is an exaggeration. “Well, he was saying . . .” he begins. “As if that qualifies him to . . .” Despite my repeated prodding, Ron seems unable or unwilling to say aloud exactly what he means. Finally, his friend Mary, a grave-looking blonde with fierce anger lines around her eyes, jumps in, points a finger and blurts out one of the all-time man-on-the-street quotes. “Look, you either are or you aren’t,” she says. “And he aren’t,” Ron says, nodding with relief. [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dispatches-from-post-racial-america/714618.md?page=3)