There were stories this week about Cosby and his new campaign around the country to try to inspire change in black america. And there have been a steady trickle of stories discussing Obama from the standpoint of traditional black leaders.

I realized something.

Once again, people pay for the sins of the rich. The grand trump card of black vs caucasian racism is the slave trade. It's a big one. In the words of a black man coming out of Amistad: I wanted to punch a white man.

Here's the problem. Slaves were owned by a small minority of white people: southern plantation owners. Here's a list of people not responsible for the slave trade and labor in the US:

- immigrants in the late-1900s to now
- most northerners
- most southerners that weren't rich

Now, of course all white people who directly participated in slavery are dead. The only people that one could argue have inherited the taint of the slave trade brush are the descendants of plantation owners: not too many people.

So when black people paint all white people as fundamentally evil and racist, because of the sins of slavery, they have committed the highest sin of politcal correctness: they have painted with the widest and crudest of brushes. Hell, they didn't even use a brush. They threw a can of paint at the wall to cover a thumbprint.

Now, obviously racism was enthusiastically adopted by people other than land owners, especially in the South. These people have done evil. But to a large degree, those people are old and dying. Obama is a representative of the new generation that is fundamentally less racist. You cannot blame the ignorance of previous beliefs on the next generation, especially if real effort has been done to combat that ignorance.

Obama is a truly a bellweather for racial relations in America, but he will also signify a strange shift: all the rhetoric, all the careers, all the organizations that existed to defend Black America against racism will not go into the night quietly. Just as old white racists are dying, old black grudges against those people will have to die off.

Older traditional leaders have formed their very identity and career on the oppressed black man.

I think those old entrenched attitudes will do more to hinder racial progress in America in the next few decades rather than any real offenses of the current generation. Cosby's pull youself up attitude is helpful in this regard, but the "I'm sick of losing to white people attitude" is fundamentally self destructive.

Hey, two years without posting. Awesome.

It's been a shitty shitty winter in Minnesota, and I think I understand why winters will be paradoxically worse with global warming.

In December, we got a huge snow. That was the beginning of the end, since the entire northern hemisphere was blanketing in a sun-reflecting, ground-chilling foot or two of snow. And so the winter was much colder.

Now, usually we'd have a thaw to get this. It's global warming, right? Well, unfortunately that means more moisture, and that means a constant supply of snow to fall and keep us real cold. And with the increased amount of moisture comes earlier snow. And since there's more snow when it should be getting warm, it doesn't warm up as fast. So spring races by.

And then we'll be in hundred degree summer.