The racist undertones surrounding the healthcare debate have reminded us all that bigotry and racial prejudice are sill serious problems in America. With all this ugly rancor, though, it's easy for us to forget or ignore the remarkable progress we've made in recent decades on the matter of race relations.

In the 1950's, for example, African Americans could not travel by car without fear of being pulled over for no reason. In the modern age, however, these same people are still repeatedly pulled over but in much nicer cars thanks to the growth of the black middle class.

No longer is the "black guy" the first one to die in any given slasher movie. These days, African American characters are most often the second or third to die. No matter how you look at it, that's progress.

In years past, it was not at all uncommon for someone of means to walk up to the nearest black man standing near the valet sign and shout, "boy, park my car." In this more enlightened and gentile age, this same person might approach a random person of color outside a restaurant and politely ask, "hey, could you park my car?"

It seems like only yesterday when African American couples were openly denied mortgages. In post-racial America, strict federal laws require that lenders become far more subtle about it. Instead of refusing them outright, companies can offer them expensive sub-prime home loans with RTO-like financing terms so they can afford to move into that suburban neighborhood they've dreamed of and slowly watch their white neighbors move out.

In this way we are all living the dream outlined by Dr. Martin Luther King so many years ago, that people in this country would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the effect they have on other people's property values.

The election of Barak Obama serves as a shining beacon of what this country has accomlpished since the dark days of Jim Crow. It has brought out the best in us and the best of our worst. His mere presence in the White House has rendered racism, often expressed in euphemism and coded language, much easier to identify- kind of like the ultra-violet light used on CSI to find blood and semen. Not surprisingly, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are positively covered in the stuff.

So, don't despair when you see conservative activists carrying signs that compare Obama to Hitler. In truth, this sort of thing is the greatest compliment in American politics today. What they're saying is this: I distrust and despise you just as much as if you were a white politician. And in the end, maybe that's what Dr. King's dream was all about.

The point is that white people are trying really, really hard. You can see how much they're straining to control themselves, the way their thin lips tighten up and the veins in their foreheads pop out when the President speaks. It's adorable.

The fact that it took Rep. Joe Wilson more than half an hour into the President's speech to boil over into a froth the way he did says a lot about how far the country has come and where it's going. In another ten or twenty years, white people might evolve to the point where they see a black person standing near a valet sign and thoughtfully say, "hey, could you please park my car?"

We can always dream.