In a Northern Virginia Starbucks tucked snugly away in a featureless shopping center not far from Washington D.C., a man, once solid, but now thickening in late middle age, looks around furtively, almost warily, before he leans in to his companions, and says, loud enough for me to overhear,

"This country will never elect a black man president."

The two middle-age women, one stylish in a pink silk t-shirt, Cartier watch and...