If you had predicted six years ago that America’s first half-black, half-white president would actually make race relations in the U.S. worse, they would have laughed you out of the room. If you had said that, in the face of a sudden racial crisis, the president — portrayed as black throughout the campaign — would be impotent, neutered, unable to speak powerfully about the situation, they would have scoffed incredulously. Who are “they”? Everyone. If you had expressed those fears out loud in the run-up to his historic 2008 election, everyone within earshot would have mocked you mercilessly. More, they...
