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22 Nat'l Black L.J. 1 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/natblj22 and id is 1 raw text is: Essay: Barack Obama, Post-Raciality and Mythic-Rhetorical Regime Change David D. Troutt* Columbia Law School's Black Law Students Association (BLSA) Robeson Conference I. APRIL 2009 It is an honor to share this important event with you, and I am grateful to the organizers for having me. The question in the topic is whether Barack Obama's presidency somehow signals the start of a post- racial period. That would mean that it alone contains the power to effect a transformation of deeply embedded beliefs, relationships, institutional norms and structural realities. I will not for a minute pretend that it has, although I confidently acknowledge our society's monumental achievements in race relations, of which the election of the first black president is but one great example. Like most people, I want to see a more progressive society. Yet I am not committed to an impatient wish. That is, I wish for more change, more growth, but not magic. I wish for the renewal of a national commitment to cultural and economic transformations around race. I wish for the collective serenity to accept what has not changed, the courage to change much more and the wisdom to know the difference without resorting to recrimination, racial scape-goating and passive aggressions. However, the entrenchment of structural racism and racial norms that prevent more collective examination of it frustrates the wish. Colorblindness, a normative aspiration turned stifling ideology, is one such racial norm from which post-raciality seems naturally to emerge. Both produce more silence than growth. Neither describes a neutral condition. I'd like to begin with five anecdotes that illustrate the problem of racial entrenchment at the mythic-rhetorical level familiar to many of us. By things at the mythic-rhetorical level, I refer to the mythology of socially * Professor of Law and Justice John J. Francis Scholar, Rutgers School of Law (Newark). This essay began as remarks presented at the annual Columbia Law School Paul Robeson conference in April, 2009.

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