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Four years ago, if you asked me whether or not we would have a black President in the next election, I would have been very skeptical, to say the least. Then, if you had told me his name might be Barack Obama, I would have thought you were absolutely out of your mind. His name, in itself, comes off as an immigrant's name, not to mention its likeness to the name of our national enemy, Osama. Lastly, he was practically unheard of to the general public. Yet, we all knew going into the polls that this year would be a historic year for Presidential elections. In the primaries, a black man was racing against a white female, so if a Democratic nominee won, it would be historic. Once the primaries were set, McCain chose a female running mate, opening the door to another possible historic moment the first female Vice President. Indeed, it was a big year for women and for minority races, regardless of the outcome.

Now, a year or two ago, I fully anticipated Hillary Clinton as a very strong potential candidate. She has continued to make news after her husband's Presidency, so her campaign came as no surprise. Intuitively, I would have thought that our first black President would have had to have at least as much press coverage prior to his campaign as Clinton had going for her.

Being a rather stereotypical middle-class, white American, I grew up pretty well sheltered from the extent of racism in America. To me, racism was a thing of the past, a part of our shameful history and a lesson to remember. I was aware that older generations, like those of my grandparents, still harbored racist feelings, but I assumed people of my generation generally knew better. In college, my eyes were finally opened, and primarily only because I dated a black man. Had it not been for my relationship with him, hearing about his experiences and seeing evidence of racism when we went out together, I would have continued my nave assumption that racism is a thing of the past. I would have been mortified, too, when I actually met a young woman, not unlike myself, who was belligerently racist shortly after graduation. She was odd to me, I was always trying to get into her head and understand it. She claimed her family was racist because they were from the Midwest and that's just how they are (even though I, myself am from the Midwest her generalities dumbfounded me), and that she wasn't really racist, she just couldn't possibly hang out with black people because, well, they're black, as if that was

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