The United States has always had a problem with racism. We’ve never been willing to tackle it head on, preferring to sweep it under the carpet and pretend that passing a law or two and paying annual homage to Dr. Martin Luther King is enough to take care of it.

Then along came Barack Obama. In 2004, after three terms in the Illinois Senate, Obama ran for U.S. Senate. He delivered a well-received speech to the Democratic National Convention that same year. In the interest of full disclosure, I was in Chicago on business that year, and heard him speak at a dinner I attended. He gave a fine speech — it was easy to see why there was so much buzz around him.

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