Showing posts with label The Atlantic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Atlantic. Show all posts

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Integration: A Gift and a Curse



WEB Du Bois said the problem of the 20th century is the color line. The problem in the 21st century is when we cross the color line, what happens next? What happens after you crash the glass ceiling to be the first?

Ta-Nehisi Coates of "The Atlantic" did a brilliant job answering this question in terms of the greatest glass ceiling breaking – Barack Obama becoming the first person of color to be President. The dilemma of integration is that while it created so many opportunities for my generations and generations before and after, it also created problems people can’t handle. 

"The election of an African American to our highest political office was alleged to demonstrate a triumph of integration. But when President Obama addressed the tragedy of Trayvon Martin, he demonstrated integration’s great limitation—that acceptance depends not just on being twice as good but on being half as black. And even then, full acceptance is still withheld." - T. Coates