As the nation prepares to celebrate black history month, the Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity gives us a bracing perspective of just how far apart black and white Americans are on race. If you are a white Protestant, the study found, race is not a major concern. The vast majority said they did not experience racial prejudice. that race is not important to the sense of who they are and they really do not think about race that much. In contrast, race is something more than four in 10 black Protestant respondents said they think about every day. Even more disturbing, given such a wide gap in understanding, a plurality of respondents said race relations would improve if the country stopped talking about race.