Theres always going to be people that dont know that the wars over. Im more optimistic than you, but maybe its because I live the way I do. I just have a great life, so its easier for me to say things are great. But not even me. My brothers drive trucks and stock shelves. They live in a much better world than my father did. My mother tells stories of growing up in Andrews, South Carolina, and the black people had to go to the vet to get their teeth pulled out. And you still had to go to the back door, because if the white people knew the vet had used his instruments on black people, they wouldnt take their pets to the vet. This is not some person I read about. This is my mother.
Heres the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, its all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now theyre not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
So, to say Obama is progress is saying that hes the first black person that is qualified to be president. Thats not black progress. Thats white progress. Theres been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. [...] The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Lets hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
