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Opinion: In today’s pages: President-elect Barack Obama

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The Opinion Manufacturing Division devoted all its real estate today to the election, with a particular focus on Barack Obama and free donuts. Two African-American scholars, Shelby Steele of Stanford’s Hoover Institution and Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown’s sociology department, offer provocative views about what, if anything, Obama’s victory tells us about American society. Steele argues that Obama took advantage of whites’ desire to be seen as indifferent to race, effectively making his race more of an issue, not less:

The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer’s ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.

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It’s probably not worth mentioning, but Steele wasn’t exactly rooting for an Obama victory. For his part, Dyson agrees with Steele that America isn’t a post-racial society, but he contends that Obama’s election could herald its post-racist future:

A post-racial outlook seeks to delete crucial strands of our identity; a post-racist outlook seeks to delete oppression that rests on hate and fear, that exploits cultural and political vulnerability. Obama need not cease being a black man to effectively govern, but America must overcome its brutal racist past to permit his gifts, and those of other blacks, to shine.

Rounding out the Op-Ed triumverate, columnist Tim Rutten also mused about race and American history, drawing parallels between Obama’s speech on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy and Abraham Lincoln’s ‘House Divided’ speech about slavery in 1858.

Over in the editorial stack, the Times editorial board calls on Obama to bridge partisan divides, repair international relations, and bring about a host of other changes in America’s approach to governing. It also reminds readers why they should be glad California wouldn’t permit Starbucks to give free coffee to voters. And that’s not a commentary on Starbucks’ coffee.

Illustration: Scott Laumann For The Times

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