First of all both of you sound like typical do nothing malcontents who are full of self loathing and self doubt.I dont remember hearing one African American say that anything will change with Obama in the White house for them.You see you dont get it.It is what he symbolizes that is so important.To the nay sayers and do nothings looking for a messiah of course you feel like its no big deal.But for those of us who will use him as leverage in fighting the ignorant forces inside Black America the ball is finally in our court.Both here and in Africa.Already African leaders are pressing for reform.Why because if you read Obama's books and writings he want a new economic order for the developing world.This is the break the Black people have been looking for.Obama is not controlled b big oil,lumber,steel,metals,grain agri biz ect.So their hold on the third world will slip in a few years.Please educate yourself and get up and do something constructive instead of blaming Obama for your own miserable life

I could not have been happier to see the MUCH need rebutal above. I was truly suprised reading the words of those young women. While many of us will always see the glass have way full, many in this country will unfortunetly only see it half Empty. Perhaps your feelings would have been filled with more optimism had Obama not won? That would reflect that the ideas in America have not change when -they certainly have. Thinking inside of the box is the reason we stumble with progress now among ourselves. Take more time out to see the positive in things, your days might now seen so long.

I dig the critical attitudes. I praise them actually. That's what this country needs right now. Unfortunately, too many are in a daze, hoping, thinking, praying that someone else will be their savior. Medical sociologists (of which I am one) say that Americans have given the main decisions of their lives over to experts. We seek doctors for what we should eat, how we should raise our kids, when we should take a vacation. It's the journalist, the talk show hosts, the psychiatrists, the teacher, and every other paid professional that can tell us how to be the person we want to be. Now, it's Barack.

I'm not saying to not believe in Barack. Living in a state that voted Democrat for the first time since the 60s, I was proud to be part of the mass that changed history. Nonetheless, him and his family are posed to be tools to the white power structure of America. Instead of contesting the racial structure, Barack has conceded to it and bashed the angry blacks and no-good (black) fathers. Instead of standing in the footsteps of the many strong black women in our community's legacy, Michelle is talking about J. Crew and raising her girls. Yes, they might have an undercover plan for my community's needs, but I am not willing to take the chance that they do not. Conservatives have run America for the last thirty years, and now it is our chance. Americans, and people across the world, must know that this election wasn't about Barack, or what Barack is going to do, or what Barack is going to stand for when he finally gets to Washington. This election was about our moment to lay the groundworks for our future.

It's been hard for me to put my thoughts into words, so I will post an essay I've already constructed on these matters. The main gist of it is that this our moment, not Barack's, not the 60s Civil Rights Movements, not the melting pot motif of America. This is our moment to define. The longer we sit back and watch for what he and his administration will do next is the deeper we fall into the mire that quicksands our feet and our dreams.

I resist every neo-conservative, neo-liberal, and social idealists that says we've made it, that America is no longer a racist society, or that we are now beyond race. As I say below, the statistics do not lie. Revolution!

Transformative Moments and the Continued Saliency of Race

The willingness to believe in the possibilities of America is the social ideology underlying an Obama win. This is my generation's transformative moment—just as MLK and JFK assassinations were transformative for the generation of the 60s, the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Depression for the generation of the 20s, and the Civil War and the end of slavery for the generation of the 1860s. I take this moment to pay homage to my elders who uprooted their families from various parts of the Caribbean under the banner of this hope, to my father who since becoming an American citizen stood in a line for the first time to cast his vote in 2008, and to the generations of Americans—black, white, and in between—who have given their lives to the possibility my generation would see this moment. My deepest gratitude is owed to you.

Undoubtedly, America has taken a definitive step towards racial equality in politics. We stand at the brink of a new history--one whose name is more contested, whose identity is more ambiguous, and whose future has hardly been conceived. The symbolic implications of race are transforming with this election, just as the symbolic implications of race were transformed with the Civil Rights movement. Yet, legal concessions by whites in power (e.g., the Civil Rights Act of 1964) seemed to all but completely regress over the last three decades of the 20th century. While the post-Civil-Rights era was witnessing black as beautiful; black styles as cool and profitable; and black upward mobility as possible, seeds of both dreams and destruction were planted. Hip hop and crack cocaine hit the streets; affirmative action programs and the prison industrial complex blossomed; the size of the black middle class and the black "underclass" grew. Again, the symbolic meaning of race is changing: some whites look beyond race (44% of whites voted for Obama), some blacks with human and cultural capital garner legitimacy (big up Barack, Clarence, Condie, Colin, Thurgood), and some Americans find hope in the new era. This transformative moment seems to be the embodiment of the much-heralded and often-scolded American Dream.

Possibly, forty or so years from now, a new generation of hopefuls will usher in the post-racial America many claim is here. However, even now at the height of our hope, the statistics do not lie. Blacks have higher levels of mortality than other racial/ethnic groups, send their children to less endowed schools, and confront lower reemployment rates at the end of recessions (Note: We're in one right now. Think about what this means for the economic viability of our families). Black men disproportionately trade paying income taxes for sitting behind the walls of jails on petty drug charges; black women bare the brunt of domestic violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS in alarming rates. Black families and children face foreclosure, neighborhood decline, and segregated spaces at higher rates than other families and children. Instead of outright violence, the subtle subtexts of inferiority are etched into attitudes regarding the disloyalty of blacks, the motivational roots of inequality, and the hypersensitivity of those who perceive discrimination. The micro and macro processes of racism remain deeply rooted in the American social system.

As a land of immigrants, the "browning" of America has always been deeply American; thus, this "new" America is indeed the authentic perfect union. Yet, we are still heirs to a society where civil liberties, opportunity structures, and social distresses are racialized. We must remember that blackness has reached the White House, not because of symbolic power, intellect, and equal opportunity, but because of a deepening economic crisis, wholesale disdain for anything Bush-related, and a near-perfectly organized political campaign. Instead of a messiah, Barack is the living and breathing embodiment of American tokenism--a mechanism of racism that has stifled the voices, hearts, and radical ideologies of the very blacks who actually have the power, resources, and networks to leverage change. I challenge this new generation to find ways to organize for racial justice—not just by one act at one transformative moment, but by acknowledging the very essence of race in our everyday lives. Revolution!