ONLY a racial killing can restart the conversation on a post-racial America. That is the impression an observer has of America’s interracial attitudes and behaviours. And so, George Zimmerman’s brutal slaying of 17-year-old unarmed Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012, in the name of self-defense via Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law,  again brings to the fore whether there would ever be a post-racial America.

There are some who even cast aspersions on President Barack Obama whenever he speaks on race matters, as they seem to feel that race is a matter for the Department of Justice and not the White House. On the whole, there seems to be some taboo to have conversations on race in America. If this is true, how then can there be a post-racial America?
Any victim of American racial atrocity and African-Americans continue onto today to bear the brunt of this evil, which witnessed the introduction of civil rights laws in 1960s America could have surmised that by the turn of the century, the U.S. would have become a post-racial society.
Such conclusion would have been rational and possibly acceptable at the time because African Americans, by and large, overwhelmed by the presence of actual civil rights laws that they might never have dreamed of, quite rightly believed that better days were ahead, where there would be better race relations and no reversion to the old conditions of racial prejudice and discrimination. This belief was equivalent to seeing things only in ‘one direction’.
After centuries of racial exploitation, this initial reaction to the civil rights laws was not surprising but inevitable, as pointed out in the preceding paragraph. Seeing things only in this ‘one direction’ as in a straight line (straight-line thinking) is referred to as a linear relationship; and in this case, shows only the link between civil rights laws and better race relations. But human behaviours are rarely explained by mere linear or straight-line links; that is, only in this ‘one direction’. It is good to hold to your dream of attaining improved prospects, but it also is useful to spare a thought for the possibility of a poor prognosis that may lie ahead. You see, things in people’s lives hardly occur on a straight line; they frequently occur in a curved way, which may include reverting to old conditions, and then back again, etc.
But African-Americans, the real target of racial prejudice and discrimination, learnt quickly as the years unfolded that the new laws, while a good start, were not enough to withstand the might of White racism. Important Black leaders, cognizant of the problems of the straight-line thinking, came forth, prepared to address the challenges impacting enforcement of the civil rights laws. Today, such challenges to reach solid race relations still bedevil America.
And so, this post-racial America was not to be, as, year after year since the flowering of the civil rights movement, racial and violent transgressions against minorities, especially African- Americans, remain a flourishing affair.
Consider these racial killings, among numerous others: Emmet Till, aged 14 in 1955, Willie Edwards aged 24 in 1957, James Chaney aged 21 in 1964, Michael Donald aged 19 in 1981, Michael Griffith aged 23 in 1986, Yusef Hawkins aged 16 in 1989, James Byrd, Jr. aged 49 in 1998, and Trayvon Martin aged 17 in 2012. Think about police brutality against African Americans: Rodney King, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, Sean bell, Oscar Grant, and others.
For all these African-Americans killed and beaten, and there are numerous others, America has had many conversations on a post-racial America. And now, with the George Zimmerman acquittal in the Trayvon Martin murder, there are those who now speak about renewing the conversation on race. Even Obama confirmed that America is no post-racial society. And so, the pertinent question to ask is: How many more conversations on race? The answer to this question first requires an acknowledgment that America, intrinsically, still is a racist society. That acknowledgment should be the baseline to start the conversation on race. But some Americans’ attachment to only straight-line thinking on race relations may hold back conversations on race.