Anderson Cooper The Journalist

The issue of race once again was front and center for a roundtable discussion on Friday’s AC360, kept there by President Obama’s taping of interviews for this weekend with five major news networks notably Fox was not among them). At each interview, the issue of race was at the forefront, prompting AC to ask the question of the roundtable if the issue would be put to rest following this weekend’s airing of President Obama’s comments on it.

For his part, President Obama has publicly downplayed the issue in his comments and clearly seems to want discussion of racism to not be part of the discussion on his health-care reform.

What was notably not said by any of the participants (CNN reporter Joe Johns, Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council and Jennifer Palmieri of the liberal Center for American Progress) is that the issue of racism will probably not subside until the passage of at least another generation rather than the passage of the weekend.

For some reason, the generational aspects of the last election have never been fully explored despite their undeniable presence. In a clear way, the election between Barack Obama and John McCainwas a battle between young and old. Obama attracted many new young voters with his talk of new ideas and progress to be made, while McCain courted the older and more conservative voters with his focus on how wonderful things in the past always have been.

The young responded and Obama won the election. It did not, however, remove the older voters from the American landscape. It is to some degree these older voters who are leading the charge against Obama not just politically but also racially.

For the younger generations, it is not as big a deal, if a big deal at all. Their lifestyles are more cosmopolitan and, frankly, more interracial. When seeing large outings of young people in bigger cities, the crowd includes all racial groups, beyond black and white to Asian, Indian and all others – and it truly seems no big deal to them.

As this generation matures and becomes the “older” generation, replacing those currently holding that title, racism will become less of an issue. But not until then.

Written by political analyst George Curcio

Below is an interesting map with America’s different ethnic groups, taken from: http://www.geocities.com/hispanic_eosh/census1.gif