Why is it always so hard in America to be the first Black to do something?

It's not really overt racism, because nobody likes to think that they could have innate racist tendencies, point is I guess we all do. But it's how we let these tendencies control our motives and actions, or what we will allow our friends and brothers to do and say because of our inner ideas on race is what makes it difficult to accept a person of other race's to challenge the recorded history of another. One person here stated all this is in the past and people of other race's are given privileges over whites, is this true? Did not Hank Arron receive death threats for fear of his breaking Ruth's record? Do we not hear taunts of "Sand Ni**er" applied to Arabic peoples? What of the man who is on youtube stating (while attending a rally for Palin) "A black man hasn't got what it takes to run a country..." Mr. Jones between you me and the fly on the wall, the fact of the matter is America still lags 40- 50 years behind the curve of most other nations concerning race, lord knows what it is, be it competition in the work place over job's, or just simple fear of losing an imaginary white America of the 50's of "Leave It To Beaver", people still still start their conversation with "I'm not a racist but...".