Inauguration Day

Finally, we have a president who doesn't mangle the English language! While Chief Justice Roberts tried his best to flub the one sentence oath of office, President Obama (the oath started at 4 minutes past noon, making him the president already, as per the Constitution) stood there and smiled at the gaffe. He seemed genuine, a figure of respect- a sharp contrast to the ill-timed smirks and defensive posture of his predecessor. It made me very happy.

I hope that the next four years bring to this country all of the things Obama has to offer, including a dialogue on race. I will never call Obama the country's first black president, mostly because he's not black. He is our first mixed race president that looks like a minority. Symbolically, that means a lot, but I hope that the discussion of how we define race is what comes of it. I know I've ranted on this before, but I feel we close ourselves in by trying to place into one box or another citizens of this country that come from all backgrounds.

A place to start is the Census. Taken every ten years, the census measures the country on many things (number of TV's, household income, mismatched socks) and race is one of those boxes. There is no box for mixed race (my wife says "potpourri," I say mullatto). This needs to change.

The United States is unique among countries in that there is no "native" population (mostly because it was the policy of the Government to exterminate them.) But what of children of mixed race marriages? Which box are they to choose? Why limit them with four choices?

Race is a social construct. The amount of melanin in a human's skin should have no bearng on their place in society. I realize that this sounds ridiculously naive, but if we are not learning from the mistakes and tragedies of the past, then we have failed as a nation.

The founding documents that Obama so eloquently referred to in his Inaugural Address make no mention of race. Shouldn't we adopt their blindness?