So, to bring you up to date, the reaction to the Kurt Kolaja photo, posted here last Friday, has gone like this:

1. It's possible an Obama supporter was responsible for it.

2. The photo was a hoax.

3. The photographer's motives for taking the photo are suspect.

4. The blogger should neither have posted it nor mentioned it on his radio show today.

That all sounds like denial or discomfort to me.  . . .  Look, I'm as willing as the next person to believe that this garbage is now so isolated that a photographer has to go out of his way in a rural area to find it. I want to believe that the Obama ascendency shows how much the nation has grown up and changed, and how the generations that spread bigotry throughout the land have had their day and gone, and how we're about to see a whole new world open before our eyes. That's why, when I first saw Kolaja's photo, I was neither surprised nor as disturbed as I used to be. I know this ugly sentiment still exists -- I get e-mail frequently from some of the worst racists in our midst -- but I think it's dying off, and the Obama candidacy proves it. . . . Look at the race for president. People actually care about important issues this time, more young people than ever have registered to vote, and the old tricks aren't working -- wedge issues, scare tactics, whisper campaigns. People have grown tired of the nonsense, the partisan bickering, the politics of anger. It gets us nowhere. A few nut-jobs have been showing up to express their hatred at McCain-Palin rallies this fall. But most of us are tired of politicians, religious leaders and talk-show hosts who exploit prejudices. We've heard it all and we're sick of it . . . Something's happened and it's mostly good. But you can't deny the reality; you can't wish it away. There might not be much we can do about the racist who paints a sign and puts it on his front lawn; at least, he's honest, which is more than can be said for those who've risen to positions of power by practicing the politics of division and fear. The vigilance of good people is necessary to flush racism of a higher order, the form that can really do damage. We have to keep demagogues and hate-mongerers out of our public life -- and out of office. "Some day," a high school teacher told us back in the day, "we'll all stand around in a circle and point at these [racists] and laugh at them."  I think we're getting there, but the road is still bumpy, no denying it.