After the Pew Research Center released its study on race, I asked if we were entering a post-black period, where race is less important than other factors in governing how we define ourselves. Over at Salon, Gary Kamiya asks a similar question in his article Is Race Dying?
These findings are evidence of a coming sea change in America's racial landscape. Together with the explosion of the Latino population, whose racial/ethnic categorization is very much in flux, and the increasing number of people of mixed-race ancestry who refuse to place themselves in traditional racial categories, the crumbling of black racial solidarity shows that race itself is beginning to fade away. And if America can seize the moment and address class inequities, which disproportionately affect blacks and Latinos and which help maintain rigid concepts of racial identity, this country's universalist, cosmopolitan dream could become a reality.
Check it out.
