Toward A More Perfect Union: Yes We Can, But We Probably Won't

The difference between a leader and a politician often becomes clear in how they handle serious problems.

For Barack Obama, the crucible of his campaign to become president came this week and he proved that he is more than equal to the challenge.

In politics, when you use a word like “bold” to describe strategy or tactics, what you usually mean is “dangerous.”

Obama’s speech on race in this country was nothing if not bold.

I’ve never been optimistic that I would see meaningful change in race relations the United States in my lifetime, but now there seems to be a glimmer of hope.

In what may well be remembered as the most important speech since Martin Luther King's "I have a dream," Barack Obama moved the national conversation on race one giant leap forward today.

Will it put the controversy caused by the comments of his minister Jeremiah Wright behind him? Not completely, but it helps clarify the relationship between Obama and Wright.

"As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.” Obama said referring to the man who has been his spiritual advisor for 20 years. "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

"These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love."

I suspect a lot of us have grandmothers like that. I had two. The difference is that you can’t choose your family. Your religious leader is another matter. If I was a church-going type of guy, I’d look for another house of worship if the message from the pulpit was a toxic manifesto against people from different ethnic backgrounds than the preacher and against the country as a whole.

Since he began running for president, Obama has tried to rise above racial issues, but was ultimately forced to confront them head on, which is probably beneficial of the country.

"Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable,” Obama said, “I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. "But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
“The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American."

For many white people, it is probably a revelation to be given a glimpse of the conversations that take place when they're not around. Obama did not try to defend the statements made by Wright, but he did explain why the minister and many like him are so angry.

"For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings and occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews.

“The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.

"That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races."

Obama also focused on the roots of frustration among whites who often cannot understand why they are blamed for discrimination in which they played no part.

“In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.

“They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. ”

Hopefully YouTube will get as many views of the speech as of the clips of Jeremiah Wright's sermons, but I wouldn't bet on it.