Obama Team Talks Race

The election of the first African American president was a monumental first in the country’s race relations, but now many act as though the issue were resolved. "I think that the line is, 'We've elected the black president, and now we're post-racial and everybody should just shut up.' It's very dismissive," the president of a think tank tells the Washington Post. Now, the Post says, “top officials are engaging the subject of race more freely, with a boldness and confidence they once shunned.” During Black History Month, Michelle Obama recently taught middle-schoolers in the East Wing about the role African Americans have played in the White House; EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has told her staff about growing up under segregation; and Attorney General Eric Holder notoriously called the country with regards to race “a nation of cowards.”