Since the election of President Obama, many people believe that we are now in a post-racial America. There’s a belief that America has reached the point where race is no longer a defining aspect of a person’s existence. There’s even been a surge of people who claim to be color blind and unable to see the race of others. I already covered why this idea in itself is problematic. The issues with this Post Racial America idea is that it’s not manifesting itself the way people expect it to given that we have had a black president. 

If we truly were living in a post-racial America then incidents such as high schoolers surrounding and mocking a Native American man, the same high school dressing in blackface during their basketball game, or even the most recent attack on Empire actor Jussie Smollett would not be happening.

While out late one night actor Jussie Smollett was attacked and brutally beaten by two white supremacists. These men not only punched him in the face, but they also poured an “unknown substance on him” which is believed to be bleach and put a noose around his neck while yelling out homophobic and racial slurs. Most notably they said that this is “MAGA country” which is a nod to Trump’s popular campaign slogan. 

The issue with the idea of a post-racial America is that events like this are still happening as if we are in the 1950s and not 2019. To say that we are in a post-racial America is to ignore and invalidate racially motivated events that are still occurring all over the country. This is almost the equivalent of racial color blindness. Using post-racial America as justification for why these things don’t happen anymore is to not address the race problem in America which in turns makes it so that no legislation is in place to prevent racially motivated attacks happening or being so prevalent. 

Once news of Jussie’s attack spread, many people were confused as to how this could have happened. Their reasoning? Chicago (where the attack took place) is a liberal city. Just because a city is labeled as liberal doesn’t mean that racism cannot be present there. For many people, they were shocked that something like this could happen in 2019 considering that we as a country have come so far concerning race relations. (I mean we had a black president how much better could these relations get? Much better) What many people fail to realize is that agressions such as this and to a much larger extent- microaggressions are very much abundant and presence in 2019. The reason why this attack made it to national news is that the victim was not an unnamed black male in Chicago but a nationally known actor.

In a “post-racial” America white supremacy would not be allowed or tolerated and they especially would not be given a platform. Allowing white supremacists to gather such as at the “Unite The Right” Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that claimed the life of Heather Heyer, is virtually a slap in the face to racial minorities and reminds them they are not completely protected in our country the way these extremist are. If we are to achieve a true Post Racial America we first need legislation in place that prevents and punishes people for attacks such as Jussie Smollett’s. We can never go beyond race if there are still people out there who are still racially discriminating people in such brutal ways.