Recommended reading: "Fear of a Black President"

Please check out this feature article by by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, titled, "Fear of a Black President." It is one of the strongest pieces on racial politics I have ever read — full of history, passion, and insight. Andrew Sullivan calls the piece "deeply thoughtful." It is a fairly lengthy article, but more than repays a careful reading. Here is an excerpt:

Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among whites. Any black person who’s worked in the professional world is well acquainted with this trick. But never has it been practiced at such a high level, and never have its limits been so obviously exposed. This need to talk in dulcet tones, to never be angry regardless of the offense, bespeaks a strange and compromised integration indeed, revealing a country so infantile that it can countenance white acceptance of blacks only when they meet an Al Roker standard.