Perhaps as a testament to how much racial prejudice has subsided in this country, I had to remind myself that it was a black man taking the oath as president yesterday.
Like many Americans, I looked at Barack Obama and saw a smart, charismatic leader. I saw his wife and daughters and admired their beauty and confidence. That their skin color is different than mine seemed to barely register in the pomp and precision of the day.
This isn’t to detract from the satisfaction black Americans must feel to see one of their own sons finally installed as leader of the free world. Rather, it’s to underscore the subtle change that has taken place in the last generation.
Like many cultural changes, the effort to dislodge racism has been so long and so hard that it took the inauguration of the first black president to point out just how successful it ultimately has been.
I’ve noticed that my own children seem scarcely aware of the racial divisions that once tore this country apart. They’ve have grown up with a very different concept of race than I absorbed in the 1960s, against a backdrop of marches and riots, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the presidential campaign of George Wallace.
Their generation sees race as just another physical characteristic, like blond hair and or short stature. To them, the color of someone’s skin has nothing to do with the person within.
But perhaps nothing proclaims how far we’ve come – -not even the election of a black president – - as much as looking at the inaugural podium and seeing only a man.