By most indicators, African-Americans are doing better than ever. Yet there is a feeling in the black community that racism is still very much a part of every day, and PNS commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson examines some of the reasons for that feeling. Hutchinson is the author of "The Crisis in Black and Black."

In June Newsweek magazine boasted that many African-Americans are living better than ever before -- better educated, making more money, living in better neighborhoods and owning more businesses. The implied message is simple. Stop complaining about ill treatment based on race.

But many do complain, and loudly. Friends, co-workers, and people I meet casually at social gatherings, in restaurants, after church services, constantly complain about racism.

These are not the gripes of a random few. The Justice Department survey released in June showing that blacks generally support the police also found that blacks in overwhelming numbers felt they were likely to be victims of police abuse.

Those who have done well are deeply wary about their new found fortune -- convinced it could be snatched away at any time. But there are more substantial reasons for complaint.

* Racial profiling: Many police officials no longer deny that blacks are stopped, searched, interrogated, and harassed on streets, in airports, and elsewhere solely because of their color. Despite mountains of studies to the contrary, police are absolutely convinced that most of the country's crime and violence comes with a black or Latino face.

* Public places: In restaurants, many blacks routinely get poor (or no) service, bad seating, and are asked for special cover fees and prepayment. It may be difficult to determine whether this is deliberate or a product of careless management, inattentive or overworked waiters -- but the experience is deeply unsettling for many blacks who suspect the mistreatment has everything to do with race.

* Then there are taxicabs. Many blacks shake with rage as cabs ignore their signals then stop a few feet away to pick up whites. Some cab drivers claim they fear being robbed or assaulted, but when was the last time a cab driver was assaulted by a black business person dressed in a suit and tie or a designer dress and holding an attache case?

* In retail stores black customers are often followed by security guards and ignored by sales personnel. In residential neighborhoods, black contractors, gas and telephone company employees are often watched and followed by residents and harassed by police.

* The glass ceiling: Corporations issue glowing press releases and brochures that boast of their commitment to diversity. Yet ten out of ten senior managers in most corporations are white, and the number of black CEOs can still be counted on both hands. Many blacks insist that they receive less pay, fewer promotions and more harassment on the job than whites.

* Business: The majority of black businesses receive little if any capital from financial institutions, and many of those that do pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses.

* Net Worth: Nearly nine out of ten employed adult blacks have almost no income but their wages. About a third of black professionals have incomes that exceed $4,000 monthly, but they hold few tangible assets. The median net worth for black households was one-seventh of the median for white households in 1992, a figure that has not budged much since.

* Housing: Over the last 20 years, about one of every three blacks fled to the suburbs. However, those very soon looked like the all- black neighborhoods they had left as the majority of black suburbanites were resegregated in every major metropolitan area. In Detroit, Patterson, New Jersey and Gary, Indiana and a few other cities, blacks are more integrated in the central cities than in the suburbs.

Many real estate agents have an arsenal of tactics to evade the fair housing laws and, despite an ocean of federal and state laws that prohibit discrimination in lending and heated denials from lenders, many banks still reject far more black housing loan applicants than whites, including many with stable work histories and good credit records.

* Education: More black students are trapped in crumbling, dilapidated public schools with ill-prepared teachers, indifferent administrators, and outdated texts than two decades ago. Worse, many are in urban schools even more segregated than they were then. At the 1997 ceremony marking the fortieth anniversary of the Little Rock school desegregation battle, President Clinton admitted, shamefaced, that the schools in Little Rock and other cities were nearly as segregated as they were forty years ago.

These are the towering obstacles that no amount of cheery talk about how much progress blacks have made can erase. And that's why many blacks are still in such a bad mood.