The election of America’s first black president has left many Americans–both black, white and in between–with the sense that America has made significant racial progress.

However, our country still has a long way to go in overcoming racial prejudice, according to people interviewed for a recent article in the New York Times.

In workplaces across the country, people are more open to talking about race, an often taboo and contentious subject. Some blacks interviewed for the story said they noticed more civility and friendless between them, their non-black colleagues, friends and even strangers passing by on the street:

Samuel Sallis, a 69-year old black man from Milwaukee, said: “Since President Obama started campaigning, if I go almost anywhere, it’s: ‘Hi! Hello, how are you, sir?’ I’m talking about strangers. Calling me ‘sir.’ ”

He added: “It makes you feel different, like, hey — maybe we are all equals. I’m no different than before. It’s just that other people seem to be realizing these things all around me.”

White Americans also said they felt a change.

“I feel a lot more comfortable starting up a conversation with people of other races on the streets now than I did before,” said Mitch Hansch, 29, who is white and works as a waiter in New York City. “Since Obama was elected, racial tensions seem a little lower. I think it’s fantastic.”

Since Obama’s election on November 4th, the American public has been inundated with all things Obama.

From which Cabinet appointments the 44th president will make, to what food the Obamas love and what puppy should grace the halls of the White House.

No to mention, entire photo galleries and montages have been devoted to the fashion choices of the future first lady, Michelle Obama.(according to Essence.com, she’s a “political fashionista”)

Even before Obama steps foot in the Oval Office, there’s an article from the Chicago Tribune about how he’ll rake in the big bucks after he leaves the White House.

There have even been articles on the fitness habits of the country’s 47-year-old president-elect.

Perhaps no subject has loomed larger than the one about what Obama’s presidency means for black America. Here are some notable ones:

-Obama Lifts Ceiling of Dreams for Black Men

-The Significance of Obama’s Victory for African-Americans

-In Poll, African-Americans Say Election Victory a ‘Dream Come True’

-Obama Election: A Turning Point in the Perception of Blacks?

Conversations about race in America usually center on the relationship between blacks and whites, but what often isn’t discussed is racial tension among minority groups.

In a Sunday op-ed piece in the LA Times, Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes racial tension between blacks and Latinos is America’s worst-kept secret in race relations.

Recently, there’s been an increase in violence between Latino gang members and blacks in South Los Angeles.

Hutchinson writes that this is just one source of the tension between Latinos and blacks in Los Angeles and elsewhere across the country.

“Animosity between Latinos and blacks is the worst-kept secret in race relations in America. For years, Latino leaders have pointed the finger of blame at blacks when Latinos are robbed, beaten and even murdered. Blacks, in turn, have blamed Latinos for taking jobs, for colonizing neighborhoods, for gang violence. These days, the tension between the races is noticeable not only in prison life and in gang warfare (where it’s been a staple of life for decades) but in politics, in schools, in housing, in the immigration debate. Conflicts today are just as likely — in some cases, more likely — to be between blacks and Latinos as between blacks and whites.”

Tensions between the two groups seemed to be heightened in the wake of debates about illegal immigration. Some blacks feel that cheap labor from LAtin America poses a threat to low-skilled African-American workers.

The Pew Center conducted a poll this year which showed that a higher percentage of blacks said either they or a family member had lost a job because of an immigrant.

Though it hasn’t been proven empirically, some studies have shown a correlation between a surge in immigration and unemployment rates for American-born workers.

A 2004 study by a Harvard professor showed that between 1980-2000 a rise in immigration coincided with a 4.5 percent decline in employment for blacks and a 5 percent decline in employment for Latinos. One caveat: it wasn’t clear whether these people would have been employed even if there wasn’t an influx of immigrants.

In a column in the New York Times Sunday, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said the only way to deal with the increasing wealth gap in the black community, and between blacks and whites, is for African-Americans to obtain the modern-day equivalent of forty acres and a mule.

After the end of slavery, black slaves were promised forty acres of land and a mule, which they never received. Gates said the legacy of non-ownership in the black community needs to be reversed and that property ownership is the key to dealing with black poverty. He mentioned the recent Pew Research Study that showed blacks are more divided along class lines than ever before.

Gates examined the family trees of 20 successful African-Americans (Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and others) and discovered that many of their ancestors owned property before 1920, an accomplishment that allowed their descendents to achieve middle-class status.

He said this same strategy needs to be used to resolve the class divide in the black community:

“If the correlation between land ownership and success of African-Americans argues that the chasm between classes in the black community is partly the result of social forces set in motion by the dismal failure of 40 acres and a mule, then we must act decisively. If we do not, ours will be remembered as the generation that presided over a permanent class divide, a slow but inevitable process that began with the failure to give property to the people who had once been defined as property.”

Many African-Americans are fed up with recent events involving the Jena 6 case and the hanging of nooses all across the country.

On Friday, more than 100 busloads of people from different states gathered in Washington to demand stronger hate crime laws.

Protestors argued there are two sets of laws in America, one for blacks and one for whites.

 Al Sharpton, a well-known civil rights leader, told onlookers that racial injustice is still prevalent in America and the reappearance nooses symbolizes this injustice.

“When you hang up a noose, that’s no joke to us. Our granddaddies swung on those nooses,” he said.

The resurgence of nooses in some cities led one black radio station to urge African-Americans not to spend any money on Nov. 2, the effort is being referred to as ”National Blackout Day.”

Warren Ballantine, a radio host on the Syndication One Radio Network, said he came up with the idea for a “National Blackout Day” because felt the federal government wasn’t addressing what he viewed as numerous hate crimes against African-Americans.

According to an article on Reuters.com, Ballantine told his listeners a “blackout” would spur policy changes: “Until we have federal legislation … regarding these hate crimes, as African-Americans we need to band together to show our economic power by refusing to spend any money from fast-food restaurants to gas.”

 While blacks have almost $800 billion in spending power, some people, like CNN’s Roland Martin, are questioning whether the boycott will have any effect.

“One issue I raised with Ballentine was how do you measure such a protest to show its effectiveness. He said others had raised a similar point, and noted that it’s important to not be discouraged by such talk, but to move people to act…I concur that it’s critical that Americans express their displeasure if they believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction. But to be honest, we have tons of ways of doing that,” Martin said. 

He added that while a one-day protest was good start, it isn’t enough to truly bring about change or incite other people to do so.

“Maybe Ballantine will get people to express their frustration. OK, fine. But that’s just not for me. And it shouldn’t be for you. We have enough Americans mad,” Martin said.

Black men in corporate America say they have to change aspects of their personality to succeed in the business world, according to a recent op-ed column in the Boston Globe.

Ralph C. Martin and Damian Wilmot, two black lawyers in Boston, said black men often feel marginalized in the working world:

“ Many black men have experienced the isolation that comes from working in organizations where there are few people who look like us. The most hospitable organizations recognize that they have to embrace people with approaches, styles, and cultures beyond the norm because they add to the array of learning and problem-solving styles that can be leveraged by the company.”

Martin and Wilmot said mentoring programs are an important way for black men to overcome the isolation they feel in the workplace. Some major companies have already adopted these programs. Showing this kind of initiative ultimately will help companies to thrive, Martin and Wilmot said.

“A company’s ability to foster a workplace that values people of different heritages is reflective of its competencies to understand how traditional perceptions of race and ethnicity influence decisions about who receives opportunity. Ignoring the unconscious influences of these perceptions makes it likely that less visible hindrances - self-identification, stereotyping, and judging people by “traditional” indicators of success - will diminish the chances of nontraditional candidates to be considered for meaningful opportunities. Great leaders understand that these differences, when harnessed, create a total of greater magnitude than any of the individual parts.”

Black men aren’t the only ones altering their personalities in the workplace. A 2004 book by Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden, Ph.D, called “Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America” profiled several women  and discussed the challenges they faced in corporate America. Some women said they felt a need to change their speech and hairstyle, among other things. The book’s authors said many of the women “shift ‘white’ as they head to work in the morning and ‘black’ as they come back home each night.”  

Tonyaa Weathersbees, a newspaper veteran who is African-American, said she has encountered the difficulties of being a minority in a white-dominated field. When interviewing for a reporting job twenty years ago, she was asked by an editor if she’d be difficult and blame racism if she didn’t get to report on the top stories:

“I got the job. But I didn’t get over the experience — because it taught me a lot about what it means to be black in a white-dominated corporate world. What it taught me was that, for the most part, getting in the door, fitting in and moving up means not just showing your skills, but downplaying traits such as outspokenness that would be regarded as natural in white men. It clued me in on the fact that if I spoke up about something, I risked being tainted as being difficult or radical, while white guys would merely be seen as being assertive or aggressive. Showed me that what some employers see as strength in white men, they see as liability in black women.”

Weathersbee has a word of advice for black women who encounter the same thing: ”So now, here’s our new struggle — to make corporations understand that they’ve got to see us as more than just a photo for a brochure, but as a force for change. To commit ourselves to excellence as we confront the hidden biases that exist.”

In what seems to be an alarming trend as of late, a high school principal in New York was mailed a noose. Authorities are treating the incident as a hate crime

Tyona Washington, an African-American woman who is principal of Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, was mailed both a noose and a racist letter on Tuesday.

According to an article in the New York Times, the letter said; “I’ll give you enough rope to hang yourself.”

This incident is one of many that has occurred in New York in recent weeks. A Columbia University professor had a noose hung on her office door. A noose was also found at a police department in Long Island.

The New York State Senate is responding to the flurry of nooses by trying to pass an anti-noose law.

On Monday, the Senate proposed a bill that would make it a crime to use a noose to threaten someone. The proposed bill would make it a felony to display a physical or visual image of a noose.

In the Oct. 29 issue of Newsweek, Ellis Cose writes Democrats need to change the way they talk about race. Cose writes that race and class are “the most loaded issues in politics” and most politicians, especially on the Republican side, have an indirect, coded way to talk about it.

Cose says Democrats are uneasy with their political base, which is made up of labor union supporters, social liberals and African-Americans, among others. To unify this base, Cose says, Democrats need to rely on a new strategy: “Democrats should rely on positive, explicit racial appeals by evoking ideals like fairness, equality and common destiny.”

Read Ellis Cose’s column here.

Apparently, if you’re a  light-skinned black woman in Detroit, you can get into a nightclub for free. At least that’s what one promoter decided, to the dismay of thousands of darker-hued black women in the Motor City.

Ulysses Barnes, a DJ and promoter in Detroit, had scheduled a “Light Skin Libra Birthday Bash” this month. All light-skinned women would get in for free, while every other shade had to pay. Barnes says the skin color-themed party would be the first of many. A “Sexy Chocolate” and “Sexy Caramel” party were to follow.

Though Barnes decided to cancel the party after he was flooded with negative responses, his party idea has once again brought up a debate in the black community about skin color preferences.

These color preferences date back to slavery, when fairer-skinned slaves were allowed to work inside the home, while darker slaves belabored in the fields of the plantation. Centuries later, that bias still lingers. It’s seen in music videos, where a white chocolate femme fatale is usually the object of affection for a male superstar, and in numerous magazines that feature light-skinned, silky haired African-Americans.

Deborah Douglas, a writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, reported on just how deep-seated the color bias is among African-Americans:

Lighter-skinned “sistas” often complain they’re unfairly treated by darker-skinned black women because they have some perceived light-skinned privilege. Myriad dark-skinned black women can relate anecdotes detailing slights and rejection by men or other black women because of their natural hue. For both groups, these feelings of rejection can last a lifetime, making us second-guess our self-worth, overcompensate or be just plain evil sometimes.

But the color complex goes beyond superficiality. Studies have shown that employers are more likely to hire light-skinned African-Americans. A 2006 study done by a Ph.D candidate at the University of Georgia showed light-skinned African-American men and women were preferred over their darker counterparts. The study placed the photos and resumes of blacks with the same credentials before a panel of white men and women. The panel overwhelmingly favored the fairer-skinned candidates.

The Sun-Times’ Douglas, who is a dark-skin black woman, said enough is enough. It’s time to break the color ceiling:

If anybody wonders if these are the musings of a bitter black girl, the answer is yes, so save your letters and e-mails. Just know that spending a lifetime of having my own people discount my brains and beauty because I’m packaged in dark wrapping doesn’t negate my point. We don’t put up with this nonsense when other groups of people are involved. We shouldn’t put up with it now.