Where’s That Post-Racial, Post-Nation-State, Global Society We Were Promised?

How do we as a nation transcend into becoming citizens of the world in a global society when our leadership conjures up sentiments of historical injustice and stirs up the melting pot by playing identity politics?

If the long-term objective is to lead the United States into a post-nationalist, post-racial state, why instigate tensions among divergent groups of people?  The unintended consequence of playing identity politics is the further entrenchment of those identities, hindering the objective of post-nationalism and a post-identity utopia.

Wasn’t Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and re-election in 2012 supposed to signify a shift towards post-racial politics?  Wasn’t Obama’s election the culmination of the historical struggle of the African American community signifying a shift towards an age of racial neutrality?

The President has taken criticism from congressional and religious black leaders for his situational racial identity.  The frustration among African American leaders lies with Barack Obama positioning himself first and foremost as a citizen of the world, transcendent of national or racial identity.  African American leaders bristle at Obama’s racial neutrality and hesitancy to embrace the identity of being the first black president – one who identifies with the historical struggle of overcoming slavery and oppression.

Obama invokes snippets of his racial identity when it is politically expedient to do so.  Obama is situationally black when in campaign mode, situationally Muslim on foreign policy missions and situationally white on the golf course.

Conflicted and frustrated, black society finds itself at a crossroads having to choose between two differing paths towards the future.  One where they must choose to either move past their ascendant history and historical achievements in this country, embrace post-racial, post-national, race-neutral society and identify themselves as citizens of the world or further entrench themselves as being African American first, descendant and ascendant of slave heritage.  The African American community needs to assess whether embracing a global society sets the civil rights movement back forty-five years or whether it is the next logical step in the progression towards equality.

To accept citizenship in the global society, African Americans must make secondary their deeply rooted culture.

If the African American community chooses to unify under a post-national, race-neutral society as a means to achieve equality, no one race’s cause, movement or struggle becomes more important than the other.  At that point the civil rights movement becomes a thing of the past.  What‘s more, there are many in positions of leadership in the present civil rights movement and Congress that view this shift as a threat to the movement, a threat to the legacy of Dr. King and a threat to their livelihood.  A movement that appealed to theological sensibilities, that we are all created equal.  That only a transcendent love can eradicate the sins of the past and that love can only stem from a Divine Creator.

Globalist progressives must tread lightly when making the didactical argument for global society theory to deeply entrenched identity cultures.  A theory that advances a classless, neutral existence where all races are equal to promote the greater good.  A greater good where no one race or class is better than the rest, where identity no longer gets in the way of harmony among peoples and peace among post-nation states.

To embrace global society theory one must also shed their religious identity as unification under globally progressive secularism rejects the notion of invisible divinity and religious dogma seeing them as the root of all conflict, fanaticism and extremism.

Dr. King called for unification in turbulent times through love – love that transcends hate and bitterness, a love that can only be God-given.  In turbulent times, global progressive secularists call for an intellectual, self-emanating calm—a calm that is humanly impossible to achieve, and a calm which only festers until another turbulent situation presents itself.