Did it have to be this way? Race relations worse since Obama became president

After New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton chose a  black man to replace another  black man as his deputy, a reporter asked New York Mayor Bill de Blasio if the replacement “had to be a person of color.”

“No,” the mayor claimed.

That’s not a little white lie. This is a case where whites need not apply.

Across the land, racially charged disputes are grabbing headlines. Broad swaths of life, including school admissions, crime statistics, income and poverty levels, hiring and firing, are seen increasingly through the prism of skin color and ethnicity.

Race riots, that urban staple of the ’60s and ’70s, are making a comeback. They rattled the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, after a white police ­officer shot a black teenager. More ­violence is expected if, as seems likely, the officer is not indicted.

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