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I look at the black people I encounter now and feel like the racial divide has widened and is too wide to cross in my generation.

I think you're hitting on the essence of why this mess with Obama is so disturbing/frightening. We do look at the folks we live with in our neighborhoods, work with, socialize with .... and now we ARE seeing color again .... and wondering if these folks have an 'Obama' veneer that hides the anti-American, white racist views espoused by J. Wright. Are these people we thought we 'knew' going to the kind of church that Obama goes to on Sundays and feeling this way, but hiding it from 'us'? I would differ by saying that based on what I'm seeing with J.Wright, the racial divide didn't widen, it has been wide all along, but like a deep wound, the outside skin healed over to hide a major festering abscess. Obama's candidacy and attention to J.Wright's philosophy has opened the abscess for all to see and be repelled.

I also think that Obama has used this church and its extreme views to prove to himself and others that he is 'black enough'. If he totally repudiates this ..... then what? Not 'black enough', not 'white enough' ..... just another less-than-mediocre politician with the unmitigated arrogance to think he's qualified to be president and now both blacks & whites are disburbed and upset with him. The Clintons don't have to say a word ..... Obama is like a fly caught on flypaper .... they don't have to pull off his wings to seal his doom.

I sincerely hope Senator Obama recognizes that his challenge goes far beyond Reverend Wright. If he is, indeed, a post-racial messenger he’s going to have to take on all the grievance peddlers who preach black nationalism/separatism.

“Hope” and “Unity” cannot be achieved as long as blacks are being indoctrinated to believe “whitey” is his oppressor and responsible for all his ills. Reconciliation cannot be one sided.

If Obama is to remain credible, he’s going to have to universally renounce black separatism and address its corrosive effect on African American progress. He can tell us all day long that HE doesn’t subscribe to it. But as long as he tolerates it among others, he will be seen as ignoring a major obstacle to racial reconciliation.

He has a wonderful opportunity. This could be his “Nixon goes to China”....or “Sistah Souljah”. Rather than retreat to the role of a black man scolding whites and blaming whites for racial discord he would surprise everyone if he instead scolded blacks for failing to grasp the olive branch when it’s offered. Now THAT would be earth shattering...and admirable.

My response on another thread this week-

I can’t understand or know what it means to be a black American. I do understand the values my family taught me by example and by talking about race. During the marches in the 60’s a lot of folks in our town went with the minister of our church to march in the South with MLK and others. I remember it clearly- and the discussions we had in school, at church, around the table etc..My family taught me that all races are different- but all are equal. They used the example of ice cream- “ See how many flavors there are...but they’re ALL ICE CREAM”... It was normal for my friends (of different races) and me to think that way, and to behave that way.

I’ve tested those values out in the real world- they’ve never proven false or led me to a mistaken conclusion. My friends and acquaintances are from a variety of backgrounds and skin colors. That seems normal, because this is America and we’re all American. Aren’t we?

This Jeremiah Wright and his sermons has upset and shaken me more than I can express. For the first time in my entire life, I am suddenly looking at people’s skin color, first. I didn’t realize how little attention I’ve paid to skin color, until I suddenly started seeing it, if that makes sense. Now I look around, at the store, in my neighborhood, my church and wonder...do these black people I see around me think of me the way Jeremiah Wright does? Am I hated and reviled for being a white woman by black people? Or just a couple..or a dozen..or all of them?

I’ve lost my bearings.

JUAN WILLIAMS: Of course, it says something about him. He joined this church, really, to solidify his credentials as authentically black and authentically a part of that South Side Chicago community, because it’s the largest church there and Reverend Wright is well known not only in Chicago, but nationally, and he’s known for making these outlandish comments. It’s very key here that, unlike the notion that Barack Obama wants to advance that he didn’t — or wasn’t aware of it, I find that unbelievable, or that this is a crazy uncle speaking out, he — he — this is a man who he chose to be associated with. It’s not a family member. He chose to be associated with Reverend Wright and saw advantage in it. It speaks to his character and it speaks to the judgment, which is the basis on which Barack Obama has been running this campaign.

This problem has always been with us. My black next door neighbor is seemingly lovely, but her relatives look at me with daggers in their eyes. They, in a word, hate me because I'm white. I had to move out of Philly because of the surly, unpredictable, nature of the natives.

It is a thin veneer most blacks have that keeps their resentment of whites from being exposed.