On MLK Day, reflecting on Obama and the road to racial harmony

Political science professor John Altman was quoted in two stories about Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President Obama's impact on race in America.

Orlando Sentinel:

"America has come a long way; though it has a long way to go and will likely never achieve complete racial harmony," says John Altman, a political scientist at York College of Pennsylvania. "When the only memorable thing that our current president has done to further the discourse on race relations is to bring together a white cop and a black college professor for a beer, it will be a long time before anything changes."

The Christian Science Monitor:

The very notion of a "post-racial" society emerging from the election of a black president is a "racist idea," according to John Altman, an associate professor of political science at York College of Pennsylvania, and one that minimizes the gains made by black leaders over the past five decades.