I have to strain to refrain from laughing when I hear someone say or write that we live in a post-racial society.  No doubt, the country’s non-Anglo population has reached a critical mass.  But it has not reached critical acceptance of the HispanicLatinos, blacks, Asians and the many others who are transforming the nation – and most likely never will.  Last week, in San Antonio, the kids from Edison High School, an overwhelmingly HispanicLatino campus, were subjected to shouts of “USA! USA!” after their basketball team lost a playoff game to a school from across town in predominantly non-HispanicLatino Alamo Heights.

Outrage and apologies ensued.  Everyone said the right thing after the incident. It is reported that the Alamo Heights basketball coach, perhaps as quick as his team and realizing the insult, moved quickly to squelch the outburst when it began.  Like others who heard of the incident, I immediately wondered how many of the kids from Alamo Heights will die to defend the USA as no doubt some of the Edison kids will.  I wondered who would dare bet me that more Edison kids have died in this country’s wars in the past 40 years than from Alamo Heights.

Some observers and commentators worried how the incident would hurt the Edison kids.  I first worry more about how their parents should react.  By the time those kids on the court reach the age of their parents, so much more of the country will have changed – and Texas more so than the rest of the nation.  The challenge is what HispanicLatino parents – anywhere in the country – do to succeed where their counterparts in Alamo Heights failed.  I am not worried about the Edison kids.  They are living in a state in which in their lifetimes the Anglo population will almost disappear.  But more important is what happens in between.  The population will get to a point that perhaps the Alamo Heights students when they are the age of their parents will need to find jobs and livelihoods elsewhere when Texas tilts ever more HispanicLatino.  Not good.

The damage last week was not done to the HispanicLatino kids from Edison.  It was done, unfortunately, to the Alamo Heights kids – by themselves and their parents.  And, really, to a country that read and heard about a story that makes the inevitable demographic transition all the more difficult.

Go, team, go.

Feel free to forward these blogs adapted from previous writings, with additional thoughts published invariably in between.