Good God this is a beautiful post

UPDATE: Sorry guys, I actually had some computer troubles this morning in the midst of writing this post. Here it is with the links and all.

Update #2: Now really fixt. Thanks Gully.

It's from Hilzoy, and I don't even want to screw it up with block-quotes. It's a fascinating meditation on Obama and race, from someone who "gets it." Back in 2002, I had this New Year's resolution that I'd stop making general disparaging remarks about white folks. This wasn't of the "kill the white man" variety, but more of the, "Man, white folks can be so arrogant" variety. New York had really exposed me to the diversity of the world. Nevertheless, you'd be shocked at how hard it is for a middle-class black person to be true to such a resolution. But I did pretty good, even if I'd let the occasional generality slip out.

Then came this campaign, and after that, came my heavy involvement in the blogging, and even the generalities I had left over became glaring to me. When you're black, because your people didn't implement Jim Crow, you feel a freedom to do that sort of thing. But what I've really learned from this campaign is that the generalizations are just wrong, and can't be justified away on some "noble savage" shit. And they aren't just wrong on a moral level, they are wrong factually. Anyway, there is this creeping thought in the back of the mind that no white person could truly understand what it's like on the other side. Maybe a lot still can't. But when I read a post like that, I understand that the gap is all about empathy and effort. If you assume a basic humanity about the next man/woman, and then put yourself where they are, the world gets a lot smaller. OK, enough sap. Back to that Elijah Muhammad/Yakub science tomorrow.