It’s a sad commentary on the state of our nation that an intelligent, articulate, Harvard-educated, church-going, family-oriented, compassionate, bridge-building presidential candidate requires early protection by the Secret Service … because he happens to be black. Racism is still embedded in our nation’s psyche — broadly and deeply — so much so that a truly viable candidate of color apparently poses an unacceptable threat.

We like to pretend this bile is not still in us. We like to pretend we are beyond it. Then the man who could be our next president must ask to be protected from those who think him too dark for the job.

(from a Leonard Pitts editorial, Obama’s Rise Fuels Hate)

When will we be the “land of the free” we profess to be, want to be, a land where someone other than a rich, white male could be president? It hasn’t happened yet …

And until it does, our claim to be a land of equal opportunity will ring hollow. And we must continue to bear the collective shame of our intractable racism.