Talk about an improbable historic coincidence:  that Barack Obama’s acceptance of the Democratic Party’s nomination for president comes 45 years to the day after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

But thank goodness this is not the blog where blind optimists gather. No one here is naïve enough to think that the election of Obama would mean the disappearance of racism or racial disparity. This is not the blog where blind opitimist gather who think that legal instruments set in place over 40 years ago to ease class, gender, and racial disparities in society, like affirmative action and the Civil Rights Act, would become outdated with a black man sitting in the White House.

Thank goodness everyone here knows that while our society has come a long way in these 45 years since Dr. King’s speech,  race hatred still exists in this country and the gulf between rich and poor is ever widening.  And that Progressives still have a long way to go before we can relax, pat ourselves on our backs and congratulate ourselves for not being, well, whatever it is that is the opposite of a Progressive.