In Obama era, have race relations improved? (hurl-o-rama)

ap/Pioneer dePress ^ | 7-29-12 | JESSE WASHINGTON

[TurboZamboni]

PHILADELPHIA—Ask Americans how race relations have changed under their first black president and they are ready with answers. Ashley Ray, a white woman, hears more people debating racial issues. "I know a lot of people who really thought we were OK as a nation, a culture, and now they understand that we're not," she says.

Karl Douglass, a black man, sees stereotypes easing. "White people deal with me and my family differently," he says.

Jose Lozano, who is Hispanic by way of Puerto Rico, believes prejudice is emerging from the shadows. "Now the racism is coming out," he says.

In the afterglow of Barack Obama's historic victory, most people in the United States believed that race relations would improve. Nearly four years later, has that dream come true? Americans have no shortage of thoughtful opinions, and no consensus.

[newzjunkey]

Obama was given a phenomenal opportunity on this front and he's proven just how small he and his party are.

At any opportunity they declare opposition to policies to be racially motivated. It debases us all and spits on the memory of those who fought and died to bring civil rights.