I did a post a few days ago about the recent actions of Rep. Joe Wilson (”You lie!” during a joint session of Congress) and tennis star Serena Williams (vulgar, profane, threatening tirade against line judge in U.S. Open). The New York Times reports that some are saying that Wilson’s disrespectful outburst was based on race. In other words, if President Obama hadn’t been black, Wilson wouldn’t have said it.

We once again see how difficult it is to move beyond race in our society, including our workplaces. There’s nothing racial about “You lie!” Former President George W. Bush was called a liar by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. In fact, Bush was called so many things during his eight years as President that I could do posts about it for the rest of the year.

Serena Williams’ tirade was toward an Asian American. I haven’t heard anyone say that her outburst was racially motivated. She was so worked up at the time that I’m confident she would have used the language she used if the line judge had been purple — or white — or black.

Discrimination based on race is illegal. But not everything bad that happens at work or elsewhere is based on race. Employees, regardless of race, will be disciplined, denied promotions, suspended and fired. That doesn’t mean there’s been discrimination.

Employers must be vigilant to prevent race discrimination in the workplace. Employees (white, black, Hispanic, whatever) must get beyond thinking that anything not going their way shows racial animus. If we can’t get beyond that, there will be no post-race America. We’ll just keep yelling at each other and assuming the worst.