Race Relations Essay

The article entitled â€Å"The state of race relations [Editorial].† was written by M. Fletcher & K. Thompson was taken from the Courier-Journal website http://www.courier-journal.com/ dated January 17, 2010 but was retrieved on January 27, 2010. The article focuses on racial profiling, particularly that of Black Americans by law enforcement. The first point that Fletcher & Thompson makes is how the first year of President Obama’s presidency brought the country face to face with racial schisms as much as it has promoted racial understanding. It is further implied that most Americans do not completely view President Obama as African American, citing that he is â€Å"Light-skinned†, has no â€Å"Negro dialect.† and therefore not subjected to the same police brutality as that of dark skinned African Americans such as Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates was arrested by Cambridge, Mass Police Sgt. James Crowley for disorderly conduct after police were called to his home suspecting to find a black man breaking into the home; Bates did not have his keys. All charges were subsequently dropped. The second point suggests that while the gap between whites and blacks has narrowed in the past decade, racial profiling and the reconciliation President Obama’s election seemed to have promised remains far off. President Obama seems to be what every red blooded American didn’t want in a president: black, little political experience, supposed Muslim beliefs and hope that Americans could become equal in all aspects of society. I am lead to believe the difference between African Americans and Anglo Americans is growing in a positive direction. As with Sgt. James Crowley, the view of black Americans remains relatively the same in a general sense, yet with the election of the first African American as President of The United States, the way law enforcement uses or collects data will be a basis for a unified change in how race is viewed throughout the world. The United States will reflect how those in authority are trained, educated and in cases where wrong doings are revealed, disciplined. No matter what changes are made in our future, wherever race is a factor there will be ignorance.