The conflict between different race ideologies has been ongoing during President Obama’s term. There are those who recognize the historic importance of a black president in a country as racially divided as the US. And there are those who are frustrated–despite having our first black president, some argue, there hasn’t been an actual shift in the quality of life of black and/or poor Americans. These two viewpoints are often overlapping, making race talk rather complicated.

Fredrick C. Harris writes of the latter in the Sunday Review pages:

But the triumph of “post-racial” Democratic politics has not been a triumph for African-Americans in the aggregate. It has failed to arrest the growing chasm of income and wealth inequality; to improve prospects ...