Exactly 25 years ago at a post-graduate seminar on race relations at Cornell, while I was a Fulbright Visiting Professor, an African-American student presented a paper stating that the US needs a black president before the problems of the community can be sorted out.

This has come to pass but Barack Obama is not a ‘typical’ black born in the US and whose ancestry may be traced to slavery. Indeed, it can be argued that - because he was able to avoid the institutional racism to which blacks are generally subjected to, with its accompanying psychological, politico-economic and social constraints - he managed to develop his capability and capacity to the maximum.