Not easy being the first

The rules of race in American society often have exceptions, but these mores are quite stubborn. In my book Success Secrets of Black Executives (ASPIRE San Francisco 1992), we interviewed a number of African-American pacesetters.
Counter-intuitively, they related that resistance to them grew when they demonstrated their competence, or worse, creativity.
The book cites longitudinal studies which show African-American managers receiving lower evaluations for the same quality of work, fewer promotions and less recognition.
As we reach the one year milestone of the Obama presidency, there has been a withering volley of criticism which appears to ignore the reality of his term to date.
One should not be surprised by the apparent turn in sentiment because it is no different than the path faced by African-Americans in the past century as they broke through numerous employment, educational, artistic, athletic,