Are we a post-racial nation? No, we re not, no matter what conservatives like to say, and what happened at a Seattle Starbucks is just further proof of that. Dr. Bob Hughes, an associate dean at Seattle University, was sitting with a colleague, just catching up, when an openly racist jerk decided it would be fun to be a completely racist jerk as he walked on past.Hughes felt something on his hand, and then the guy called his friend a  n***** b*tch  before walking out.  That s right, f**king n***** b*tch,  he called one more time as he walked out the door. The other customers in the Starbucks just kind of sat there, doing their own things in a deafening silence that demonstrates how post-racial we re not.These are two college administrators who were dressed professionally, and just talking inside a Starbucks. KUOW.org published an essay from Dr. Hughes, in which he said: As my colleague noted, as we waited to file a police report, we both know that we can t dress ourselves out of the perception of who were are in the dominant society. She and I were dressed in the kind of professional attire anyone would expect a college administrator to be wearing in the middle of a work day, are still targets for hate.But the young man didn t see educated college administrators sitting at the table. He saw two black people and, in his twisted sense of the rules of life, our socio-economic status, educational accomplishments or our age required no respect or deference. In fact, he seemed only to see a woman of color whom he could brazenly assault in an open space with others watching. He went on to explain that it took him back to his childhood in the 1950s and  60s, where he was a black kid growing up in an all-white community, and where this kind of racist, hateful behavior was normal because of that. Silence from onlookers was normal then, and it appears it s still normal today.One woman offered to be a witness, and the manager of the Starbucks helped them file a police report. In a truly post-racial world, as Hughes said, nobody would stand for this. Nobody would have just sat there quietly. And yet, we hear all the time from conservatives that black people, and everyone else who talks about racism, are the ones who are the problem because race doesn t matter anymore.This wouldn t have happened if race didn t matter anymore.The lack of immediate consequences for the young man who did this mean he will do it more and more, without shame and without remorse. Hughes says: My guess is that next time, this young man will be more violent. Unstopped, antisocial behavior like this escalates. And he lives in a world right now where he felt safe taking these actions. He ll feel even safer doing so if we end up with a President Trump. What Hughes and his colleague endured is disgusting in 2016.Featured image via Seattle University