“We the people…in order to form a more perfect union.” Barack Obama started his speech on race Tuesday with these simple words that began the preamble to the Constitution of the United States.

            And yet, 221 years since these words were written, not far from where he delivered his speech in Philadelphia, this union is still far from perfect.

            One area of American life that white and black alike still struggle with is the issue of racism. And so Obama chose not to ignore, not to sweep it under the rug like more unwanted dust, but to address it head-on in what may be the signature speech of his presidential campaign – even more so than all those “Yes, We Can” orations.

 “The fact is,” Obama stated, “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 to perfect.”

Obama went on to condemn the remarks but not the man who made them, and to suggest that the way the media treats presidential campaigns – and the issue of race – is not helping the nation move toward that more perfect union.

 The speech was delivered in response to recently publicized “incendiary” remarks made of Obama’s Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely,” he noted, “just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagree.”

Rev. Wright’s comments, he said, were wrong and divisive -- “divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a failing economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.”

In refusing to repudiate the man who made the divisive comments, he tried to explain how they came out of the black experience, out of another generation, indeed out of the black church – the place where black people find comfort on Sunday morning at an hour that remains the most segregated of the week in America.

Obama acknowledged that the church contains kindness and cruelty, fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, struggles and successes, love, and yes, “the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.”

Still, Mr. Wright is like family to him and Obama said he can “no more disown him than I can disown the black community,” he said.

The importance of Obama’s speech, it seems to me, is not whether he repudiated the pastor (as Republicans have demanded that he do) but that he used the speech to underline a fundamental theme of his campaign: change -- including the courage to face up to the fact of racism and admit that attitudes need to change – and say it in a way that doesn’t drive more wedges.  Toward that end, the white community needs to acknowledge that “what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people.”

The change he talked about also has to do with campaigning and with how the media covers campaigns and other news. Republicans no doubt will continue to bring up the Wright issue, if Obama is the candidate, as a way of reinforcing racial prejudices.  And the media will continue to analyze and re-analyze  the racialness of it all.  

Obama justly talked about the choice facing the country: tackling race only as a spectacle, as in the O.J. trial -- or in the wake of tragedy, as in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news.

“We can play Rev. Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.

“We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

“We can do that.  But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction.  And then another one.  And then another one. And nothing will change.”

Obama likely didn’t attract any new voters, but this was a speech he had to make. It was carefully penned, honest, and necessary -- even if it swayed not a single vote.

The truth is that Obama may have been irreparably damaged by this issue, suggesting that he may not be electable in November.  Republicans obviously see a way now to get at him. Even so, this was an important speech, and one that needed to be made.

Whether or not Obama is your candidate…whether or not you think he has enough or the right kind of experience.  And whether or not he becomes president…this year…one fact remains.  He’s right about the need for this country to understand, step up to heal the racial divide and move on from the racial issues of the past. It may take a president like him to close the great racial divide.

             He’s also right about the divisive way that the media covers the presidential campaign. The media is doing little to help the nation repair.

            Maybe the founding fathers should have written: ”We the peoples…” because we are far from being one.  But here, don’t take my word for it.  Read The Speech for yourself.

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