Mr. Weiss,

You must not be aware that the Civil Rights Act OF 1964 is just one generation removed from you.  You must also be unaware that we needed a Supreme Court decision in 1967 to tell 16 States that banning interracial marriage is unconstitutional.  It's surreal to think that we were so advanced a civilization that in 1969 we sent a man to the moon, yet just 2 years before that we had 16 States in which interracial marriage was illegal.

Thus, it seems overly convenient for you to speak on behalf of black Americans from the comfort of your armchair.  Slavery may have been abolished by Lincoln, but racism has yet to be abolished, and institutional and legal racism was part of the fabric of our nation until just 40 years ago.  I don't think it is fair for you to assume that people who lived through those outrageous times should have gotten over it by now.  Barack's speech went to the heart of this matter like no other in recent memory, and your spin on it proves so many of the points he tried to make in that speech.