Welcome to the age where you can read all your magazines on an iPad, where cars talk to you and tell you which way to go, where toilets flush themselves, and where your phones can do everything, including your taxes. Seems like we are living in the future, but it's not as advanced as we would like to think.
Despite still having to use gasoline and the lack of jetpacks, there are other setbacks keeping us from being as progressive as we would like. Sadly, racism is still an issue in our society, although it is hushed and ignored. In a recent interview about his movie Django Unchained, director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino remarked that slavery is a disgrace largely ignored by American society, although it continues to impact everyone today.
And this couldn't be more spot on. Early racism was more direct than it is today, so for the most part we don't see it like we did in the 60's.
Use of the 'n' word has significantly declined and African-americans are employed at rates almost identical to whites, so what's the issue then? Although verbal abuse still exists as well as physical racial violence, something curious has happened in recent years that transformed the malevolent face of racism to a face that is more unsuspecting.
The problem is that having friends of a "minority" has become a fad, a trend, a very (insert cringe here) hipster thing to do. Hipsters move into less desirable neighborhoods because they are "retro," "vintage," and "undiscovered," by the rest of the hipster population. And this creates a medium for these people to soak up the culture of these dangerous neighborhoods and by proximity, make new friends of a minority (and post pictures with them on Instagram so they look accepting of all races.)
Along with this, these people will look for any reason to tell somebody about their black friends, or their adopted Chinese baby, or their Guatemalan store clerk they tip so well. Because it is trendy, they will look cool and their friends will feel inferior. So there you have it. Racism isn't gone, it has merely shifted shapes into a fad, and if you want to be cool you gotta have some multicultural friends. I'll wait for the day when we are referred to by our names and not our skin colors or places of origin.
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