and it is called race
eventually Obama was going to have to directly address it
far too many Americans do not understand how Jeremiah Wright's words are reflective of attitudes in the larger black community, born of the pain of the ongoing experience of racism in this country.
Despite the advances made in the Civil Rights movement, despite the number of blacks now able to succeed in sports, industry, politics and academia - all changes that have occurred in my own lifetime, as I was born in 1946 - far too many blacks are still left out of the process.
Cities become increasingly black and whites flee to the suburbs. Until they decide they want the convenience and coolness of living in the city and then black communities are disrupted by gentrification
express frustration in any fashion and see the rhetorical talking heads criticize, comment on the dysfunctional black family, a family that might be dysfunctional because a black man is far more likely to be incarcerated than a white man
see other groups insist that racism is less acceptable than say sexism at the same time as your own daily experience still includes indignities such as being stopped for driving while black, or being followed around the convenience store, or being treated as a thug merely because of the style of dress or music you favor
I am a white male senior citizen, from an upper middle class family, who had access to good schools, private music and art lessons, private tutors when I struggled in French and Latin, summer camp, etc. Perhaps it is because I teach in a county that while middle class is predominantly African-American, in a school system that is heavily African-American, that I remain at least partially aware of the discrimination that still exists, of the resentments many blacks feel towards the indignities they still suffer.
Perhaps had America been paying attention, the words now taken out of context from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, rather than shocking, would remind us how far we still have to go to address the open sore of the issue of race in this country.
I am glad that Obama will address this subject today. I will be watching. I am actually less interested in what he will say, because I doubt anyone paying attention will be surprised by what he says. For me the test is not for him, it is for us - the media that will comment immediately, and the larger American population. I suspect that his address will frame this as something much more than political,and that the tendency of many commenting immediately will be to measure its political impact. That would be the wrong measure. Far better to measure its moral and societal impact.
This has begun as a comment and will be posted where it was originally intended. I will also post it as a diary, separately, because I do want a few other to see it, and perhaps offer their responses.
I am a racist. That is, I am shaped in part by the advantages I have of being white, and my attitudes have largely been shaped by being white. In that sense the vast majority of us are racist. Not Obama, not my two grand-nieces, whose father is the son of my sister and whose mother grew up in a church-going African-American family in California. I am of a generation where race was still far too defining. I say "I am" because at times I still find myself thinking and speaking and acting from a white frame - despite years in the company of people different than myself at times I realize that I have not totally transcended the limiting framework that I mean when I use the word racist. I am certainly not a hater, nor do I think one race superior or another inferior. I totally reject the idea of discrimination based on external characteristics of race, gender, religion, or sexual preference. But I still benefit from the attitudes of those who do, from the structures of our society which have never completely removed themselves from racial discrimination or preference, even if stated in other ways, like alumni preference for college admissions when the parents were of a generation that largely excluded blacks.
We are overdue for confronting the sin - yes, the sin - of our history of racism, our ongoing problem with the issue of race.
And I hope and pray - yes, pray - that we use this occasion for more than an evaluation of one political candidate, but recognize that we have the chance to confront ourselves and our society and make some meaningful changes in both.
Peace.