NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF: Obama and Race

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/opinion/20kristof.html?bl&ex=1206158400&en=0d1e9305b145f292&ei=5087%0A

Obama and Race

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: March 20, 2008


Barack Obama this week gave the best political speech since John Kennedy talked about his Catholicism in Houston in 1960, and it derived power from something most unusual in modern politics: an acknowledgment of complexity, nuance and legitimate grievances on many sides. It was not a sound bite, but a symphony.

But the furor over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory sermons shows that Mr. Obama erred in an earlier speech — the 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention that catapulted him to fame.

In that speech, Mr. Obama declared that “there is not a black America and a white America... . There’s the United States of America.” That’s a beautiful aspiration, and we’re making progress toward it. But this last week has underscored that we’re not nearly there yet.

The outrage over sermons by Mr. Wright demonstrates how desperately we as a nation need the dialogue about race that Mr. Obama tried to start with his speech on Tuesday.

snip//

What’s happening, I think, is that the Obama campaign has led many white Americans to listen in for the first time to some of the black conversation — and they are thunderstruck.

All of this demonstrates that a national dialogue on race is painful, awkward and essential. And that dialogue needs to focus not on clips from old sermons by Mr. Wright but on far more urgent challenges — for example, that about half of black males do not graduate from high school with their class.

Then maybe we can achieve our goal of getting, finally, to the point where there is “not a black America and not a white America... . There’s the United States of America.”

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. There has not been a legitimate discussion about race in this country

since the 60s. That discussion resulted in the Democratic Party revamping its nomination process, to give more of a voice to the under-represented - to blacks, to women, even a nod to gays.

The DLC was created to squelch that, after the old white men decided that these upstarts had cost them the election in 72, had forced Jimmy Carter on us in 76, then lost everything to Reagan in 80.

But it was not the upstarts who fled the party to vote for Reagan. It was not the upstarts that created a power block in the party that won by adopting republican positions while selling out civil rights.

Before we can fix America, we need to fix the party.

[babylonsister]

2. Seems like Dems still don't want to discuss it; I haven't seen one

coming to Obama's defense. That to me is puzzling.