Particularly in the deep south. (I've never lived there, but I've been traveling there since my teenage years — mostly to the particularly racialized part of North Charleston, where my best friend & his fam lives. Things are so much better there than they were 10 years ago even.) Obama's presidency helped things way more than so many out west here realize. Things were already much better than they were even before Obama, but the regular blending & interchange between the races has really taken a huge turn in the last 10 years.)

I say this as a guy who grew up in very racially innocent small-town New England. Our pretty small black population was as old & respected as anyone. We all had the same surnames & spoke pretty much the same. There was very little keeping to ourselves, & interracial marriage was common.