Why?

It is not only because often when we look at them we see ourselves, or our former selves, but because we understand the deep, continuing effects of structural black disadvantage; because we have personally experienced slights that remain a quotidian part of the black experience (see today's outstanding essay on this website by Larry Bobo and Camille Charles for a more nuanced exposition of this reality than I could hope to provide).

If it really is too little, too late, the consequences of this reality are what one might expect.  We can expect a black community even more disillusioned with American politics than it was a year ago, and a nation that is continuing down a reckless course toward racial disaster.

Michael C. Dawson is the John D. MacArthur professor of political science at the University of Chicago.