China has moved ahead of the United States in every category except maybe the military. China is basically a one race country and does not have to concern itself with the inefficiencies of race relations. Virtually every city in the United States has a black side of town and a white side of town. Even New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have separate commnities. America wants the ideal of a melting pot like it wants to fight global warming- - without any significant personal adjustments. So climate will change but not the nature of our neighborhoods. Whites want blacks to assimilate, but just not in their neighborhoods. So blacks happily live in their own neighborhoods.
Yet when the terms African American or black are invoked whites seem to take offense or tend to ignore 'the black community.' There is an ethic of 'why can't everyone just be Americans?' Don't they notice that blacks notice that they run and move away as blacks move in? So looking over one's shoulder and suggesting that we are all 'just Americans' seems a bit hypocritical, and that is being generous. This is also ironic because the African American community is as American as apple pie. So the Chinese will continue advancing their society because they do not have to tip toe around each other after work. And even if Barack Obama is elected president, American neighborhoods will not change. A very good description of this response to the term African American is in the PG Gazette.
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