The Living Consequences

On Friday, the State Department announced that the U.S. does not intend to participate in the U.N. conference on racism in April unless there are significant changes to the working draft of the conference document, including toning down references to reparations for slavery.

This development appears to be the inevitable result of the Obama administration’s original position on the conference, coupled with the inability of the U.S. delegation to secure changes to the draft last week in Geneva.

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President Barack Obama has taken a key step to reverse the Bush administration’s long-standing boycott of the United Nations Conference Against Racism.

This move is an early result of the Obama administration’s determination to engage more fully with the U.N. and other multilateral organizations. It is also a sign that the new U.S. administration has changed, but not entirely different, attitudes on such issues as human rights, Israel, and the Muslim world.

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The New York Post, in its infinite wisdom, ran the cartoon shown here in today’s edition.

The illustration refers to yesterday’s shooting by police in Connecticut of an out-of-control chimpanzee, while the dialogue refers to President Obama’s signature legislative item, the stimulus bill which he signed on the same day.

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Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams has a perplexing column in tomorrow’s Washington Times in which he claims that with the election of Barack Obama, “all the ‘-isms’ that were born from racism, reparations, and white guilt are now dead and buried.”

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In a revealing moment, a committee of the Arkansas House of Representatives yesterday rejected a resolution congratulating Barack Obama on becoming president, on the basis that the United States should not be described, even in that context, as “a nation founded by slave owners.”

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Barack Obama was just sworn in as the 44th, and first black, president of the United States.

I watched his inauguration in the Philadelphia airport, en route from a speaking engagement on slavery and race to an audience of five hundred on Martin Luther King Day in State College, Pennsylvania.

I was privileged to be able to join a roomful of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees as they watched the inauguration on a television set. There were absolutely no tears in the room — until the audience in Washington was asked to stand for the swearing-in, and the entire room in the Philadelphia airport rose to its feet. I’m sure that the applause, cheers, tears, and camaraderie which we exchanged after he took the oath of office were mirrored in locations across the land.

At last, after more than two weeks, we have the final results of the presidential election:

I don’t mind saying that I correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states.

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While several results remain too close to call this morning, I think it’s time to post an indication of where the races stand at this time.

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Major networks are now calling Florida, Nevada, and Colorado for Obama.

These states bring Obama to 338 electoral votes, with 53 electoral votes still up for grabs (in Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina) and the lingering possibility of a minor upset in Montana.

With the closing of the polls on the west coast, the networks are finally willing to acknowledge that the exit polls in several of those states are enough to easily put Barack Obama over the top, with at least 284 electoral votes.

Separately, Virginia has now been called for Obama, giving him another 13 electoral votes. There are several states still to be heard from, and Obama is probably not done winning states tonight.

The updated election map: