I think it's fair to say that every white American knows another white American who is a bigot. The bigotry comes out in different ways - in conversation about politics, sports, crime, music, life in general. The bigot you know probably enjoys sharing a crude joke now and then, and these days you might receive an offensive e-mail from him, as I did last week.
If you've been around this person enough over the years, you pretty much know what to expect. You don't expect this person to change. You don't expect this person to say anything nice about, much less vote for, Barack Obama. (He or she probably didn't have many pleasant words about Hillary Clinton, either.)
I would also say this: Every white American of a certain age - say 40 to 60 - knows fewer bigots today than he or she did 20 years ago because, for one thing, a lot of them have died off. We have become a more tolerant society by generational attrition. But there's more to it than that. We're far from colorblind, but if Obama's presidential nomination signals anything, it's at least the dawn of a new era in this changing nation.
Baby boomers grew up immersed in racial bigotry - most of us were born when Jim Crow laws were still on the books - but our kids are growing up in what the pollster John Zogby calls a "beige America."
Our kids have not had the instruction in racial hatred a lot of their parents and grandparents had. More than ever before, Gen X and Gen Y are the offspring of mixed-race and ethnically mixed couples.
More of them have been exposed to greater ethnic and racial diversity in their schools, in their musical choices and cultural interests, at work, and through the global reach of the Internet. They've made Will Smith the top-rated, highest-paid movie star and Tiger Woods one of the most popular sports figures of their time.
In his first book, The Way We'll Be, Zogby predicts that Americans who are now between 18 and 29 will be the first colorblind generation. He calls them the "first globals," young Americans who are acquiring an "expansive world view" as they mature. They are better educated and more connected to the world than previous generations. They have a greater appreciation of the need for international cooperation, mainly because of environmental and human rights issues.
