Is America Beyond Race?

The Week has a collection of links to articles from Frank Rich and Andrew Sullivan asking if America is post-racist.

Is America post-racist? No, it's not. No. As a person of Mexican ancestry who looks white in the winter months, I can't tell you how many times I've heard nasty comments from white people (who assume I'm white) about Mexicans. The last time was a few weeks ago when I went to the wedding reception of a friend and his new husband. They had just returned from California, and their families had thrown them something of a surprise celebration.

My friend, who is Filipino, married a wonderful man who happens to be white. When I chatted with my friend's new lawyer sister-in-law, who appeared thrilled that her gay brother had gotten married, she told me she was from San Antonio. I know nothing of San Antonio, except that it's in conservative Texas. She seemed like such a lovely and open-minded person, so I asked her what her city was like, if it was liberal like Austin or conservative like the rest of the state. She rolled her eyes and said, "Well, it could be more liberal, but those Mexicans are overrunning the entire city! You know how they breed."

Continued after the jump.

I looked at her and smiled and said, "Well, I say the browner the better! I'm Mexican, so I think it sounds just perfect!"

She froze in place and then cleared her throat, "Oh, you're, uh, Mexican? Well, um, good for you! Good for you!"

Here was a woman, educated, sophisticated, and, yes, she had been drinking, whose was in Manhattan to celebrate her gay brother's wedding to a Filipino man. And even there, even in the middle of the most liberal experience imaginable, racism slipped in. And then out.

That's the thing with racism these days. Since it's incredibly uncool to be racist, whether you're on the left or the right, the racism beats a retreat into the basement. But it rarely gets thrown out.

A one-off experience? No. This kind of thing has happened to me a dozen times in the past few years. I don't know how much basement racism will factor in to the voting next Tuesday, but it will be a factor.