I think Matt Cooper is correct in pointing out that race relations were pretty lousy just twenty years ago in addition to forty years ago. They were especially lousy in St. Louis, where the population was (and still very much is) segregated, and where a series of overtly racial city-wide campaigns only exacerbated the fear and mistrust. And on the national stage it was the era of Willie Horton, Pat Buchanan, and "white hands."

When I was a freshman in high school way back in 1991, I made friends with the kid who sat behind me in homeroom. He lived on the North Side. Once my dad drove me up to his house so we could hang out. It was a little weird stepping out of the car, because there were folks outside on the block obviously wondering what in the heck a white kid was doing up there. It wasn't hostile or anything - you could just tell that a white 13 year-old kid was a rare a sight on that block.

If the roles and neighborhoods had been reversed, it would probably have been the same (though I fear it could have been slightly weirder).

Not that anything is perfect now, but I think things are generally a little bit less tense - a little bit less "weird" - between people of different races than they used to be.

And like I said, things aren't perfect.

But the fact that we are about to inaugurate a wildly popular black guy as our nation's president is pretty encouraging. No way this would have happened when I was 13.