The end of one year and prospect of a new one is likely to bring on a time of reckoning, even among those not given to introspection. The tendency is especially strong for those – such as this reporter – who have reached the autumn of their years. Questions that may be pondered but not outwardly expressed often include: What has happened to me during the past 12 months? What can I do next year to improve my life and the world around me?

We are preoccupied with the relentless march of time as it advances like a juggernaut leaving its mark on everything it encounters. Even things considered unchangeable are not immune. The polar ice cap is melting, and the sun – scientists were telling us before the global warming debate began – is gradually losing its heat.

Since time affects our appearance and social acceptability it has fostered an attitude in which youth is worshiped. We like babies and children because they represent continuity. We disdain the elderly because they remind us of aging and our own mortality.

Time magazine calls this now-ending decade “The Decade From Hell,” contending that “The first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era.” This decade was one that lacked a general consensus on what it should be called, unlike the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and Nineties that were easily named. Many in the United Kingdom called this decade “the Naughties.” Some decades, such as the Sixties (the civil rights movement) have an immediate association.  Others are more nebulous. What tag will be hung on this 10-year span?

As we move into the third millennium, it may be well to remind ourselves that time has no demarcations except those we assign to it. Time is relative. The year from one Christmas Day to another seems like forever to a small child. For many older people the years pass unbelievably fast. Time oozes along when you’re in traffic jam but flies when you’re enjoying yourself.

Time has brought changes to the African-American community. This decade we have had unparalleled successes and at the same time devastating problems and enormous setbacks. The black family seems under siege. Black unemployment, especially among young men, has hit epic proportions. The school dropout rate is rising.

Despite the election of President Barack Obama we have not yet reached the place Patricia J. Williams envisions “where white is not equated with normalcy or black with exoticism and danger.” Although Obama gives reason for optimism, there is little evidence to suggest that America will have a color-blind society soon. The best we can hope for is that “quiet racism” – behavior or thoughts aimed at blacks by well-meaning whites – will diminish. A quiet racist is someone who says such things as: “Blacks used to be discriminated against but now they have more rights than white people.

Overt race-related incidents these days are usually subtle but occasionally there are acts of outrageous bigotry and ignorance, such as the Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to perform a marriage ceremony for an interracial couple. Similar ignorance was shown by the caller on C-Span who claimed President Obama is not really African American because his father was from Africa.

Obama’s father is from Africa; the president is American, yet he is not African American? Go figure!

Historically, various euphemisms have been created for blacks and blackness: minority, underprivileged, lower class, disadvantaged and inner city. But collectively, this nation has failed to take a proactive and sustained approach to the issues that still make equality elusive. It is common to quote Thomas Jefferson’s statement that “all men are created equal,” but it is almost a platitude to say that he did not believe what he wrote.

Despite the strides, the nation has not moved away from the time when black people are viewed with suspicion. Patricia Williams writes: “There are sudden moments in my life when I realize that I exist within the shadow of a public preconception. The little jolt of realizing what you symbolize is pathological dispossession and the ultimate in alienability.”

Time and concerted action in the decade ahead, let us hope, will somewhat ease the pain she feels.

(George E. Hardin worked as a photographer, reporter and editor, and in public relations during a long career before he retired. His column appears every other week.)