How Much Change Is Possible?

Chicago is a racist city. That is to say, the city is divided along race lines and most day-to-day activities have racial implications. You cannot drive on the expressway without remembering that it was constructed to cut off the lakefront from west and south, black Chicago. You can't ride a bus or train without the knowledge that you, a white person, have buses and trains precisely because southside blacks don't. The transit authority allocates its resources to white areas. Shopping, watching local television, using infrastructure--everything is targeted at white, liberal Chicagoans, and then, after them, Latinos.

Barack Obama got elected to the US Senate by Richard Daley. Period. No support from Daley = no Senate seat for Obama. And Daley is the head of not only corruption in this city, but he is also the enforcer of the racial taxonomy that his father first utilized to shore up his power.

So, if elected, what would Obama do to end this patently unfair and racist reality in Chicago? Nothing? If he's going to heal our divisions--which presumably means racial divisions, as well--then will the President of the United States end the reign of America's most corrupt mayor?

Don't bet on it.