On Obama and Race

I did not have the opportunity to vote this election year, since I was in China on election day. However, if I had been home, I would have voted for Obama over McCain. I just cannot vote for someone who is not pro-choice. Also, under McCain, I believe the nation would have continued on this path of the rich getting richer and at the expense of the middle class.

However, I have not been carried away by this feeling of euphoria in the air since Obama was elected, despite the fact that I, like Obama, am a fellow Chicagoan, and a fellow minority. Or is it because of it?

I am still smarting from Hillary Clinton's loss, and still think she is more experienced than Obama. However, there is more.

When I look deeply into my heart, I begin to see the misgivings that I have. As a young Asian girl wandering around the streets of Chicago, I have been the focus of racism. It was subtle racism from the part of the Whites. But the most blatant and traumatic racism I have ever experienced were from the part of African American people.

In my Hyde Park neighborhood, walking home, a group of teenage Black men walking on the opposide of the street, taunting: "Chink... Chink..."

In a high-end, Chicago grocery store just a few years ago, while checking out, the Black bag clerk: "Ching Chang Chong hong..." I complained to the store manager, however, the White manager makes excuses for the boy, "Oh, he is just immature." More racism, this time from the White guy.

I am not saying that Obama is one of those ignorant, underprivileged, blacks. On the contrary. I believe that he is tolerant, race-blind and extremely intelligent. It is that his election has thrown the racism that STILL exists in American into high relief. I don't believe that Obama's winning the presidency means that the country is enlightened and race-blind. No. I believe that many of the whites and blacks who voted for Obama are still racist, may turn around and be racist against Asians. Has Oprah ever had an Asian guest? Will there ever be a hit movie starring an Asian and a Black that did not involve racial jokes? With Obama in the presidency, I wonder if Asians will now take the third or 4th tier behind the Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. I think this way, because as a child in Chicago, and recently as an adult visiting Chicago, I have been the victim of racism. If just as recently as a few years ago, I experienced racism, can a country really be that race-blind?

I will get off of my rant, now, and try to believe that the country really is better... (By the way, some of my friends in grade-school were Black.)