Peter St. Onge

Twenty-two hours before she told Mecklenburg County Manager Harry Jones he was fired, Pat Cotham typed up an e-mail about herself. A reporter had asked her earlier that day about her leadership style, and she was dissatisfied, apparently, with her answer. “If I could ramble a bit…” her e-mail began.

Last November, Moriah McKinney went to the Watauga County courthouse with her mother, Cathy, to vote. It was Moriah’s first time, and she wanted to do it right. She had a sample ballot that she’d studied and filled out, and when it was her turn, she laid it next to the real ballot and, one by one, picked her candidates.

Long, long ago, in one of his final days as Charlotte’s mayor, Pat McCrory looked out the window of his 15th floor Government Center office, and he swept his hand toward all that had changed in his city.

It began with a flick of his finger. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, about five minutes into the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union, felt a bead of sweat on his right temple. He reached up, swiped it away, kept talking. It was odd, but it was understandable, hot TV lights and all.

About four months ago, in this space, on this day of the week, a certain white Observer columnist declared that we need to talk more about race.

So the younger son asks me what I want for Christmas. It’s a good question without a very good answer – at least one that’s not bo-ring, Dad.

I worked once at a union newspaper up North. It was a comfortable place, with good pay for the size of the paper. I knew that didn’t happen by accident.

You’re on a New York City subway platform. You’re hunched over your smartphone, your iPad, your tabloid newspaper when suddenly, a man is on the tracks. Is he crazy? Was he pushed? You step backward instinctively. You look for someone to step forward. You hear the rumble of an approaching train.

If Barack Obama defeats Mitt Romney on Tuesday, you can blame it – at least a little – on the noose.

It’s probably smart to begin with a disclaimer: We need to talk more about race. We need to talk about its role in the education we provide, the health care we offer, the jobs that still can be elusive to blacks. Whether you want to see it or not, race still finds it way into lending and housing and the administering of justice. It’s real. We need to talk more about it.