Perhaps presidential campaign will give way to acceptance of diversity

Like many others, I’ve been appalled by the sleazy attacks often dominating the current presidential campaign. But I’ve recently come to believe that there may be another, more hopeful way of understanding them.

Before the times of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, racist and sexist comments were scarce about political candidates, primarily because the major parties so rarely nominated an African-American or woman for national office. Now they are — that’s real progress — but it has also unleashed the always lurking prejudice to come out in full and ugly glory.

Could it be that we are going through one more baptism of fire to make way for the ultimate acceptance of greater diversity in our society? Social change has always been uneven, but we can return our eyes to the prize.

This story was originally published October 31, 2016 at 9:22 PM with the headline "Perhaps presidential campaign will give way to acceptance of diversity."