Every US president makes promises, and every president breaks promises. The current host of the White House is by no means an exception.

Though winning over voters by such catchphrases as "Hope" and "Change" in the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama has in the past six years disillusioned not only Americans, but also the rest of the world by failing to close the infamous Guantanamo prison, to help curb global warming, to achieve an agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state, and so on.

And now, as Obama is approaching the middle of his second term, the first African-American US president has disappointed people again in his shattered promise to tackle racial inequities in the criminal justice system.

While a grand jury recently decided not to indict the white police officer who in August shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, the ensuing public anger and disenchantment certainly served as an indictment of Obama's failure to keep his promise this time. Claiming his victory in 2008 as a signal that the US would have a colorblind system of justice for everyone, Obama again over-promised.

Since a tired colored seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus 59 years ago, the US has indeed made significant progress toward the objective of equally treating all citizens.

However, stark racial inequality in one critical area, namely the criminal justice system, threatens to make a mockery of Americans' hard-fought civil rights progress.

For the African-American community of Ferguson, the hardly justified killing of Brown was a last straw.

According to The New York Times, the population had long been the victim of power abuses by the local white-dominated police force. Unfortunately, the Ferguson incident is, rather than being isolated, only a dot in a string of injustice events that stains the US reputation as "the champion of human rights."

As a result, African-American residents' lack of faith in the justice system is representative of broader national attitudes. Almost each recent public opinion poll suggests that Americans believe the justice system of the country lacks justice.

In a September poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, 84 percent of black interviewees believed they did not receive fair treatment as the whites in the criminal justice system.

For a country that gradually accustoms itself to disappointment over its president's failure to keep promises, maybe the fiasco of its justice system this time did not come as much a surprise.

The author is a writer with the Xinhua News Agency. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

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