This photostream on Flickr offers evidence of where we Americans are as a nation.

The images show the South Side of Chicago, Mr. Obama’s neighborhood, in the second year of his presidency.

At a Mahwah, NJ party I attended in 2008, many of the Italian-Americans present were aghast that an African-American might be elected President of the United States.

“He’s gonna do everything for his OWN people and ignore the rest of us!” one man said.

That man needn’t have worried. Things are just as they always have been for much of the poor and the darker skinned.