"Playing the race card is an expression often bandied about like the phrases “raise awareness” or “step up to the plate.” These idioms do not indicate a literal card on racism but rather that race is a predominant factor within an issue’s content.

But politically correct phrases are clever like that, although they sound cunning, they fail to deliver any real push.

Yet this ambiguous race card popped up repeatedly during one of the most ntense presidential races in recent history. Which leads me to speculate what general society likes to avoid admitting: racial differences have not been ameliorated in the few decades since the Civil Rights movement.

Like a bully that has returned to terrorize the neighborhood, racism roils just beneath the surface of a seemingly diverse country. Lately, the thermostat has been set on the 2008 presidential election.

I think race issues are the ultimate categorization of preference based merely on melanin in the skin. Nothing more and certainly nothing less. But to those who have never felt the sting of overt racism, then it is hard to break through with that information. Those who have felt it, remember it and work to change it.

Humans are a predictable lot, we believe in homogeneity with predictable ferocity. That is to say, We are comfortable being surrounded by those like us."

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S.E. Ruckman: Race card repeatedly played in election (The Native American Times 11/5