To the Editor:

An excerpt from the most recent The Economist said that after Obama's victory last Tuesday, "America can claim more credibly than any other Western country to have at last become politically colour-blind." Indeed, it seems that we have entered a new era of racial perceptions, where a candidate's skin color is not a deterrent to vote for him in a presidential election.

Millions of people are celebrating both here and abroad not only because we feel we have elected a great candidate, but also because we are excited to take this giant leap past racism, a leap that shows our imperfect union is on the road once again to forming a more perfect one. The jubilant emotions of these celebrations are honorable, and they are real. It is a beautiful thing to see huge numbers of Americans so happy about healing the wounds of slavery and racism.

However, I believe the "color-blind" description is inaccurate. What America's vote showed was not that we don't see color anymore. Rather, we saw that Obama is indeed a black man, we acknowledged his race and we decided that this black man was fit to be president. This is the milestone we have arrived at — not color-blindness, but acceptance that black people are just as intelligent, capable and American as whites are (a milestone that is absurdly overdue).

A world where there is no black or white in this country is a dream world. Slavery and over 100 years of lawful disenfranchisement of African Americans made that world impossible. Both whites and blacks still harbor their respective prejudices, and that's just the way it is. We need to acknowledge that instead of pretending we have moved past those prejudices. But we have, to be sure, done a good deal of healing over the years, and that bigotry has diminished considerably.

And even if a color-blind world were possible, I'm not sure we would want to live in it. While it is a noble goal, it would not mean the end of racism. On the contrary, it would hinder efforts of racial healing: A color-blind world would conceal our history (both the good and the bad) that is so necessary for the racial healing process — a process that may never end. Also, different perspectives and experiences are a good thing, not something we want to get rid of by blending them all together.

The fact that Americans did not see a colorless candidate makes Obama's win, I think, even more impressive because it shows most of us are coming to terms with these truths about our country and ourselves. Despite these truths — the impossibility of color-blindness and the existence, still, of prejudices — a majority of Americans (and 43 percent of whites) decided an black man should lead us through perhaps the darkest time in recent history. That decision should, at least for now, quiet even the most ardent cynics, this author included.

James Stoeckle

Senior

College of Arts & Sciences