Was electing Obama enough to atone for America's racist past?

The show: Boston Legal
The episode: "Thanksgiving," first aired November 24, 2008, the Monday before Thanksgiving 2008 on ABC.
What happened: Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) invites several white attorneys to her home for Thanksgiving dinner. Edwin Poole (Larry Miller) brings his black foster child over. The issue of racism comes up during the conversation, and Alan Shore (James Spader) accuses the firm Crane, Poole & Schmidt of being systematically racist, and points out that with the exception of Edwin's foster kid, everyone at the table is white. Shirley counters that most of the lawyers at the firm voted for Barack Obama, to which Alan replies that there is no way to verify that because of ballot secrecy, and he scoffs at the idea that electing a Black man is enough to purify America of its racist past.
Musings: Just as Phil Farrand sometimes ruminates rather than nitpicks Star Trek episodes, so too will I occasionally ponder in this space larger issues raised by the episode. I don't have nits for this episode; all the discrepancies can be explained by nuances in a character's political position (it would also benefit real-life people to have nuances to their political positions, too).
At the end of last week's episode, "Kill, Baby, Kill," Alan spoke on the balcony of how wondrous was the night Obama was elected President, and how he didn't want that night to end. (By the way, doesn't it seem like for most newscasters January 20 just can't come fast enough? I don't remember there being a lot of fuss over President-elect Bill Clinton back in November 1992.) That was the episode in which he represented a woman (Cheri Oteri) who was allegedly fired from her job because she voted for John McCain. In the courtroom, Alan eloquently defended ballot secrecy. How do Alan's statements in the previous episode fit in with his statements in this episode? Alan can deem Obama's election "wondrous" but at the same time think it insufficient to atone for America's racist past. The mere election of Obama might not be enough to change the apalling statistics on African Americans (some of which Alan cites) though of course one hopes that when Obama takes office he will be able to turn at least some of those statistics around. As for ballot secrecy, a lawyer defending it in court doesn't necessarily mean that the lawyer personally believes in it. We accord more weight to Alan's statements on the balcony because they are directed to his best friend, Denny Crane (William Shatner).
Not a nit: David E. Kelley does like to recycle his actors for different characters, but occasionaly he brings back an actor to play the same character as before, and sometimes an actor does both (such as Anthony Heald, who played the same California judge transplanted to "Massa-tchu-setts" in both The Practice and Boston Legal as well as a high school principal in Boston Public). John Larroquette, who is now Carl Sack on Boston Legal, played a murderer named Joey Heric in The Practice. Heric was a recurring character who appeared in six episodes from 1997 to 2002. James Spader also appeared on The Practice, there also as Alan Shore. Alan Shore's first episode was "We the People," which first aired in 2003; meaning that there are no episodes of The Practice with both Joey Heric and Alan Shore. Because if there were, it would certainly count as a nit if Alan failed to mention, however fleetingly, the resemblance that Carl bears to Joey, that man who got away with murder on several occasions.