re: Is America Racist?

I think it's all a matter of perspective.

Folks want to try to paint things black or white (pardon the pun), but truly, America is varying shades of gray when it comes to race.

Racism has NOT been eradicated in this country, by any stretch. It may never be (but I'll never say never on that front, especially as mixed couples/families become increasingly common). Some folks may not want to hear it, but minorities still do experience racism and racial bias in varying degrees in the USA. Just because things are better than they once were is not cause to dismiss such incidents.

By the same token, however, it is flat out astonishing how far we've come in race relations in so little time. From a country where wholesale chattel slavery was legal to one where minorities have full legal rights in a century and a half? That's a turnaround virtually unprecedented in world history, and America is to be commended for it. Especially when holding our race relations up to those faced by the rest of the world, we ARE the gold standard for progress on that front. There's no other country where I'd rather be a minority or raise a mixed family, if I'm blessed with such.

There will always be work to do. Like greenbastard said, there are plenty still living today who were on both sides of the civil rights movement. They didn't read about it in a history book--they lived it, for better or for worse. Those wounds won't heal in a generation or two, but the rest of us can keep the ball rolling in the right direction. That's what it boils down to--how are are going to improve the status quo? Because in spite of our successes, there will always be room for improvement.