Racial Equality is Not a Realistic Goal

The year 2007 has been a year that shines light on the fact that we aren’t the “colorblind” generation that we claim to be. We pretend not to notice because race is such a sensitive subject, but we’re all living a lie.

As I scanned the news for a legitimate topic for this opinion column, events like the Mike Vick dog fighting case, the Don Imus controversy, and some recent events at the University of Mississippi such as the DKE incident and reports of suspicious males that could be 95 percent of the black males on campus stuck out in my mind and prompted me to address some of the racial issues in our great nation.

I know I’m not the only person out there who has entered into what had the makings of an all-white situation, and breathed a long sigh of relief when I saw the only other black person in the room staring right back at me. But I’ve also been in situations when that black face in the crowd wasn’t there and there are no words that can describe the emptiness and loneliness that consumed me as I searched for someone who looked like me.

I knew I’d most likely never be friends with that person, and would probably not even speak to them but I desperately searched the crowd for any trace of brown skin; their mere presence is enough to calm me down because I feel like I could never hope to be treated fairly in an all white environment.

When I say “treated fairly,” I don’t mean that I’d be called a nigger (I feel the word has to be said for effect, phrases like “the N-word” and “racial slurs” just don’t do it justice) or asked to leave, sometimes the unfair treatment is more subtle. It can be a stare, a look of shock, or even patronization. In those situations, I rarely say anything because I know that I’m intruding in their world.

I accept it because I know life isn’t fair; this harsh reality has been pounded into my skull since the first time I felt the pangs of mistreatment. Even to say the scales are tipped in favor of white people is an understatement because in reality, they still own the scale, we’re just requesting permission to be weighed. Yet too many times the word equality is thrown around frivolously when race is involved; I hear things like “the search for equality,” “will opportunities in America ever be equal?”, and “the fight for equality. “