Racism is like water pollution. And for water pollution we have a Clean Water Act. It's a very powerful and well-written law -- but only works when it is enforced. The problem is that it is rarely enforced effectively. Hence, we still have lots of dirty polluted water.

Our civil rights laws are the Clean Water Act for racial discrimination. They are powerful and well-written laws -- but they only work when they are enforced. The problem is that they are rarely enforced. Hence, we still have lots of lots of racial discrimination of the type that is barred by statute.

Segregated communities today are largely the result and legacy of the Republican administrations' hostility to the very concept of using the law to stop discrimination in public and private spheres. You can't knock these laws because in fact they have almost never been tried. Republicans since Nixon have been using racism as an electoral wedge and actually encouraging the public to ridicule and demean the entire concept of racial equality. You can't pour this type of corrosive acid on the body politic for 40 years and be surprised that lots of whites and blacks don't trust each other and don't want to live near one another.

Aggressively enforce the civil rights laws on the books. And then, if that is not working, feel free to hand-wring.

The election of Barack Obama is not some magical panacea that will make prejudice and discrimination disappear. Anyone who thinks so is a deluded fool. The tap roots of racial prejudice are extremely deep and far spread in the soil. If you pull up a dandelion by its stem, it will grow right back.

The best thing this new administration can do to address what Mr. Patterson identifies is to effectively enforce the nation's voluminous civil rights laws. Our civil rights laws are written precisely to protect minorities, especially blacks, from discrimination in the private sphere: housing, employment, health care, education. Enforce these laws effectively and you will see more integrated communities and neighborhoods.

Where I live, in central Maine, there are very few blacks and a lot of open hostility and "stares" to those blacks who live here (a population which is increasing every month). The n-word is used freely and often by many whites (they think because I'm white, I won't be offended). There is still a long way to go in even the most basic spheres of respectful behavior.

I am very optimistic. If there is a better opportunity to truly close the breach of prejudice than Jan. 20, 2009 I cannot imagine it.

As they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

I think your essay would be much more accurately titled: "Why I Don't Fear Black Men The Way I Did in the 1980s."

Your essay is not about black people in the U.S.; nor is it about civil rights; nor is it about U.S. policies regarding civil rights. It's about your own fears of black people in the past 25 years and how they have changed and lessened.

And that's a perfectly fine subject for an essay. But you label it as such.

I'd hate to see what happened if it succeeded.

The headline "Racial Thaw" is wrong on uber-multiple levels.

And umm ... WTF does this mean???

First, I think the drop in crime and teen pregnancy in the 90s helped ease some of the fear of whites.

What are you implying ? That only blacks committed crimes and only blacks got white girls pregnant, or only black girls got pregnant?

And what does this mean?

Intellectuals were authentically worried about the rise of Louis Farrakhan in the mid 80s and the crowds he would draw for his conspiratorial rants.

Who are these "intellectuals" of whom you speak? Names, please?

And what about the mid 1980s "conspiratorial rants" of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about the conspiratorial character of the jailed terrorist Nelson Mandela?

Do they not count? Were any intellectuals ... hmm ... Cornel West ... "authentically worried" about them?

What is this crap ???

Thank you for this essay.

Open Left and myDD bought their commenting software package from the 1971 Czech government.

Don't think for a second that Obama has not studied Mandela's tactics with an electron microscope.

How do you know all this?

How do you know what "most of the 46 percent" think?

Did you interview them?

Why should we have any confidence in your prediction about what all these millions of people are thinking -- people you admit you have never spoken to and have never interviewed?

Keep up the good work.

What is this crap?

Are you actually conflating playing golf or playing a character on TV with being the President of the United States?

Are you actually suggesting that race did not play a role in this election?

Do you have any factual evidence to prove your point that race was not an issue in this election?

What is this crap?

Let's repeat 1,000 times. Being President of the U.S. is not like a baseball game. The analogy is wrong at 1 googol levels.

McCain called Barack Obama a terrorist, communist, Islamofascist, gay lover -- every epithet in the vocabulary he thought might stick.

McCain never apologized for this vile sewage. He approved all of it.

Todd Gitlin is right.

Not 2008.

P.S. Where was the Black Supreme Court Justice in Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson?

You have no response to that.

Bye.

Not 2008.

P.S. Where was the Black Supreme Court Justice in Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson?

You have no response to that.

Bye.

I didn't tear up tonight. I deliberately kept myself from doing so. This past 8 years has been such a nightmare that I have already done way too much of that. Words are seductive in that if you say them the right way you forget that they need to be followed by actions if they are to have any meaning.

Now we have the chance to finally have words backed up by action and meaning.

Then I will tear up.

Cheers and thanks.

Did you ever say that about Mayor Koch? Or Giuliani?

Hmm ... only the black mayor was not "cut out" for the job.

Move on, please.

Stereotype much lately, Mr. Sleeper?

Why not throw in some Marion Barry smack?

I don't get this, Mr. Sleeper. Those who opposed Obama think that Young Earth Creationism should be taught in schools, that Global Warming is a lie and that spraying DDT is a great thing.

This election was, more than anything, a referendum on Science and the Enlightenment vs. superstition and pseudo science.

I respectfully ask you to rephrase your question.

Thanks.

Without ads, there is no TPM.

Cheers.