Lots to cover this time out, folks. First, if people hadn't been glued to their television sets watching a Ford Bronco drive down a highway escorted by half a dozen police cars over some fifteen years ago, would Barack Obama stand a chance of being President today?
One of the questions I'm often asked is "Does your research indicate anything about race in this issue?" I'll point readers to the comments by Tex and WindKiller on Slew of emails about my political postings (#2) because they offer comments on both racism and sexism in this political season.
But did OJ Simpson's trial help Barack Obama's political future?
The neuromathematics that indicates racism is, like so much in this field, of degree, not racism's existence or lack thereof. Sorry to have to tell you this, but everybody is racist to some degree or another. It has to do with our evolutionary history. We needed to recognize "the other", those whom we might meet on the pampas or in the mountain passes who weren't of our tribe, group, village, et cetera, very quickly. People of different racial backgrounds that those in our tribe, family, group, village are very easy to identify. So everybody is racist.What do I mean by "racist"?
Glad you asked. I mean that people feel most comfortable with people who look like them, talk like them, act like them, think like them, like the same foods, like the same drinks, so on and so forth. Do I mean white people have a neural wiring that demands they don't like black people, or that people from the Fertile Crescent won't get along with people from the Asian rim?
No, not at all. I mean that people can most easily recognize and differentiate the physiologic and social characteristics of their own race over those of other races. The amount of research demonstrating this is staggering.
However, our modern world is able to defeat that evolutionary history by saturating us with images of other cultures, people, times and places.
Be Grateful, White America
So, White America, be grateful that OJ Simpson stopped being an individual and became an object, that he as a person lost his identity and became a symbol, but most importantly be grateful that this time out (I mean his Las Vegas travails), not a lot of people care. He's certainly not getting the air time he got before.
Be grateful that OJ Simpson, Rodney King, et al became symbols so saturated in our psyches from better than fifteen years ago (the time between then and now is important and plays a key role in the calculations) that only those truly prejudiced, only those who are intentionally and with malice intended racist, that they still recognize Barack Obama as "black".
I heard Barack Obama state that he "self-identified" as African-American. First, I loved "self-identified". It simply seems like a term only politicians would use. I don't "self-identify" as an Italian-American. In fact, I'm still of a generation that, if asked what my nationality is, would reply "Italian" although I was born in the US and lived here most of my life.
Now You Can Self-Identify as "Racist"
Anyway, as Newton said about standing on the shoulders of giants, so Barack Obama has to thank those who came before him for saturating us to the point that matters of race no longer matter in our collective consciousness.
Race, at least. Not sex yet, I think, but sexism fires whole different parts of the brain-mind than race does and will take far longer to dismiss from collective consciousness.
Look at Senator Obama and see someone who doesn't look like you? Time to self-identify, me thinks.
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