Americans elected their first black president eight years ago with Great Expectations, the greatest among them that the election of a president with a brown face would improve race relations. In fact, it was this “hope” that was the most attractive qualification of Barack Obama. But hope, as he has demonstrated, is not a strategy.

America’s legacy of race, beginning with slavery, is a deep and complex one. Barack Obama, in a further complication, did not emerge from the mainstream of American black life. He was abandoned at an early age by his black father, a Muslim from Kenya, and when his mother married again it was to an Indonesian.

Mr. Obama’s experience as a community organizer among blacks in South Chicago did not raise his consciousness much. He was largely unsuccessful as a community organizer, taking as mentor a radical left-wing Marxist, and he failed to establish close relations with the black Christian ministers who presided over the political and social structure of the ghetto.

Once in office he demonstrated that he had not learned as much as he could have. His quick and offhand comments on racial incidents confused both black and white. With ignorance of all the facts, he often plowed ahead with false analysis and fixing of blame.

Mr. Obama and other black leaders refuse to grapple with the high level of crime among blacks which is at the root of much of the violence in black communities.

The president says that black and white must engage each other to talk about race in America. We agree. But that conversation must include the breadth and depth of what’s happening. Only then will the conversation, which could be the beginning of something real, actually accomplish anything.