clipped from www.tennessean.com Racism in American society weaves a network of systematic problems In his celebrated speech in Philadelphia on March 18, Barack Obama talked about the struggle to fulfill the promises made explicit in the Declaration of Independence and presumed in the Constitution. Less noted were his comments about the effects of systematic racism: "Legalized discrimination — where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments — meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities."