Post-racial America.

It became a familiar term in the last year, and why not? It sounds wonderful.

Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States. An African American, his wife and two little girls are planning a move into the White House.

Time to turn the page on the country’s tangled history of racial conflict and injustice. Problems solved; equality achieved. Hasn’t a country in the midst of economic turmoil and international uncertainty earned the right to cross at least one thing off a very long list?

Maybe not.

It was recently reported that the celebrated reduction in the U.S. murder rate didn’t include young black men, particularly those ages 14 to 17. More are doing the killing; more are murder victims. The increase coincides with a rise in the number of murders involving guns.

The story made headlines for one day.

The report was written by James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University, and Marc L. Swatt. They are not optimistic about the numbers getting better unless some things change.

More police officers on the street would help, they say. More crime prevention programs and after-school activities aimed at young people in poor urban areas might make a dent. The report also blames a weakening of gun laws for the bad news. I’d add schools with a slimmed-down curriculum and an emphasis on tests, not inspiration.

It seems that attention to homeland security after 9/11 turned the country’s eyes away from the insecurity within.

That’s where some place the blame – on dysfunctional black families who are not looking after their own and on young people looking for excuses.

Isn’t it possible to encourage responsibility and self-reliance – a message common to Sunday sermons in black churches in every city – and also lend financial and moral support to black children?

Verbal reprimands that recommend benign neglect and stern “you’re on your own” advice to communities in crisis sound pretty ridiculous when set beside multibillion dollar rescues doled out to financial markets and corporate America.

Is dollar-and-cents capital somehow judged more worthwhile than flesh-and-blood human capital?

It took time for the country to slide into an economic ditch; the journey to a place where separate and unequal is still too true for too many took even longer.

Yes, a president Barack Obama proves that on a very basic level, anything is possible.

Young black men – to whom he may seem a remote and privileged figure – would do well to consider the young Obama, described in his memoir “Dreams from My Father.” He was at times confused and dejected. He admits a few detours before he found his way.

But the rest of us should remember that this man from a sometimes chaotic family situation was lucky, as well as determined. He could have been neglected and written off.

That would have been a waste.

Writing off young men with all the potential in the world locked inside their communities and themselves would be just as tragic.