Many people, including President Obama, took exception to Attorney General Eric Holder’s 2009 comment that we remain, largely, a nation of cowards when it comes to issues of race.

Some that agree with Holder may have used different words. Some disagree with his comments entirely. But they are wrong.

Holder was right.

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.

New York Times Op-Ed columnist Charles M. Blow clearly spells out the issues and the challenges in his November 19 column “Let’s Rescue the Race Debate.” One of these days we’re going to recognize the urgency to get over our denial and begin our journey of acknowledgment and healing.

Naysayers will point out how much progress we’ve made over the past fifty years and they are correct. And as Mr. Blow points out:

Many racial problems have been solved but many remain. Some we must tackle within our individual communities and others must be dealt with between them. Racism isn’t everywhere we imagine it, but it is in far more places than we admit.

Exactly.