Where should conversation on race start?

Yahoo! News - Associated Press ^ | March 30, 2008 | Adam Geller

[Perseverando]

So, we're going to get honest about race this time? Let's get started then. If only it were that simple.

We've had time to digest Sen. Barack Obama's call for a new, and more frank, examination of the "complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked our way through." Plenty of people, including some from opposite sides of the ideological fence, heard something in that speech that spoke to their hearts.

But a period of reflection makes clear that, when the power of rhetoric fades, we're conflicted not just about race, but even how to talk about it.

Candor can help, some say; others worry fresh honesty will inflame old tensions. And who is qualified to join in this conversation? It depends whom you ask. Is this only a black-white thing, or is that too limited? Can different generations, with different experiences, hear each other on this issue?

To some it sounds like a conversation — or an argument — they've been having or hearing all their lives, and one that started long before.

We live by a Constitution that began, "We the People," but declared black slaves worth only three-fifths as much as whites. From the Lincoln-Douglas faceoffs of 1858, which focused largely on what to do about slavery, to the most recent debate over renewing the Voting Rights Act, the rift over race and what to do about it has defined us.

"In some ways, he (Obama) is joining in a conversation already in progress," says Kareem Crayton, a professor of law and politics at the University of Southern California.

It's been a decade, in fact, since we set out to have the last national conversation on race. Consider where we are as we wonder how to embark on the next one.

[wideawake]

We live by a Constitution that began, "We the People," but declared black slaves worth only three-fifths as much as whites.

Apparently we need to have a national conversation on literacy before we proceed to a national conversation on race.

[PeterPrinciple]

It usually starts with them calling me a bigot. I then agree with them that I do discriminate on many behaviors and ideas.

[ClearCase_guy]

I’m tired of conversations that involve me being lectured and told to shut up if I try to voice my opinion.

[bmwcyle]

I’m past that discussion.

[glide625]

Yea, you know where this is going; nowhere. What might come of it is some push for company sponsored meetings like diversity training where Blacks will speak of their awful experiences demanding white males admit their all racists. Kinda like those “consensus” meetings where the outcome is predetermined and whitey is expected to agree or face the consequences. Count me out.

[lapster]

Actually the conversation should start with black people apologizing to the rest of us for what they’ve done to our cities and then offering to pay reparations.