Have Race Relations Really Improved?

Zimmerman Is Acquitted in Killing of Trayvon Martin

The above headline is from the front page of the New York Times 7/14/13.

Not to put aside the tragedy of Trayvon Martin losing his life (essentially for being in the wrong place at the wrong time), does anyone honestly think that if this incident involved two blacks or two whites or two Hispanics, in short if race was not involved, that it would have received the edge of your seat national attention that it received? This was O.J. in reverse. Eleven young black kids were killed in Chicago last week, where is the national outrage? How much progress have we really made as a nation in the last fifty years? It's obvious that race always changes the dynamics of an incident such as this. Should it? The The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 yet we are still torn apart by a tragedy such as this; we're still litigating affirmative action, we're still fighting about voting rights and racial gerrymandering and the pending immigration reform is loaded with racial overtones.

How far have we really come?