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right? You can read statistics, correct? You have Internet access right now and know how to use Google, don't you?

If racism is over in the United States, why is it that on the rare occasion I have access to cable TV, and I'm talking about in the past five years here, I can find a TV advertisement for a cell phone company that portrays a white guy pointing his phone at a black woman on a city bus and making her pole-dance for him? I'm sure there was a lot of protest when that ad came out, and I'm sure the cell phone company yanked it, but what kind of mind invents something like that to begin with? What kind of mind approves it for broadcast, both at the cell phone company and at the cable TV broadcasting company? How many of you weren't outraged at seeing it, much less inclined to call and complain about it?

If racism is over in the United States, why could I as a member of the Southern Poverty Law Center access hundreds-yes, hundreds-of hate crime records from any given recent year that never seemed to make it into the national media? We're not just talking about name-calling, although that is bad enough; we're talking about attacks brutal enough to cause brain damage or death. Can we say with a straight face that racism "isn't that bad anymore even if it still exists" if we don't even hear about it happening?

If racism is over in the United States, how do you explain what happened after Hurricane Katrina? (Hint: The correct answer is not, "Oh well, that's the South." I believe we fought a war back in the late nineteenth century on the premise that the South is, in fact, a part of the United States. And you don't have to look far to find racism up North today, either.)

It's very easy for white people to say that black people feel they can only "advance" themselves with an organization behind them. We have an organization behind us too. It's called "the old-boy network." It works better for white men than white women, but whiteness is still an advantage in this country, and anyone who says otherwise hasn't been paying attention. What's more, they haven't wanted to do so, because if they had, they would know better than to suggest that political disadvantage can be reduced to individual weakness-as usual, blaming the victim, which is a cowardly, dishonorable thing to do.

Yes, I think the NAACP should keep its name just as it is. Again, my opinion doesn't really matter to those the NAACP serves, but I hope it matters to others of my own race. We still have a long, long way to go.

Learn more about this author, Dana Seilhan.
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