Interestingly, race relations were at their peak in 2008. The trends of seeing racism everywhere and reading it into everything, people's personal views (notably, those of minority respondents, many of whom viewed race relations in far more positive terms than they do today), and more importantly the pervasive, institutionalized victim pimping that has spawned a billion dollar industry in recent years—these are all artificial, forced, and came about in the last 15 years.

Yes, race matters a lot to many people. It certainly matters a lot more than it did until 2008—to all "racial" groups, that is—and I can't help but notice that a lot of freshly minted "experts" are, fifteen years later, profiting very, very handsomely from providing "solutions" to a problem that has perversely only grown in proportion with the size of the industry itself.

> Interestingly, race relations were at their peak in 2008

You mean when a significant minority of the population was saying that Obama was a secret Muslim trying to impose Sharia law on the United States and McCain (whatever happen to people like him?) had to constantly squash it in his own party?

I think he might also mean the claims that Obama was born in Kenya and even releasing his birth certificate, the original, wasn't enough even though this wasn't an issue for other presidents