Many of the founders were slaveowners. Although their Declaration and Constitution projected progressive institutions for centuries to come . . . there were dark holes in their bright ideas.

The "3/5" compromise over slavery was the beginning of that racist thread that has, indeed, run through the entire working out of American governance and hegemony.

Your analysis, Umair, as starkly accusatory as it seems to white Americans, rings true.

It rings true.

What we have done here is tragic.

So the offensive controllers became the offended victims, under the sorcery of the the master clown--the clown who manipulated our tragedy into a sick comedy of errors, cruelty and gratuitous violence.

Perhaps the next administration can begin correcting some of these systemically-racist defects that you have identified.

I hope so. I hope we do have now--as the GOP thought we had in Reagan's America--Morning in America.

Is our long national nightmare over?

We hope and pray that the dawn of true brotherhood and justice will lighten our centuries-old shadows if inequality.

To accomplish such a feat, we must collectively find some basis for hope. Getting beyond the critical analysis will require some hope somewhere.

Maybe its the same Hope and Change that Barack and Joe stood for in 2009.