So it goes both ways. It deprives people of free choice really because the peer pressure can be immense, but it s understandable in a way to me that many blacks would seek zones of comfort. I mean, I was a foreign correspondent for many years. So to some extent the clustering is a natural phenomenon, and it s not necessarily just a racial phenomenon. It may be something that s got a lot of other attributes, and that probably will be with us in some fashion for a long time to come.
Whites cluster together, and people who work on the newspaper, the football team, and so forth.
It s there. May I ask one last question. We ve had Abigail and Steve Thernstrom on the air here with their new book, saying there s been a lot of progress on racial issues. You re more skeptical of that. Without debating the facts, I d like to know whether you re optimistic about the future of race relations in the country.