Let Us by All Means Have an Honest Conversation About Race

Commentary Magazine ^ | May 23, 2008 | Linda Chavez

[Jbny]

On April 30, the day after Barack Obama issued his second and more definitive statement repudiating his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, the editorial page of the New York Times warmly congratulated the Illinois Senator for making it clear “that the preacher does not represent him, his politics, or his campaign.” In almost its next breath, the paper went on to score the Republican John McCain for embracing “a white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright,” to tar an anti-Obama commercial in North Carolina as “race-baiting,” and to call for a “serious, healthy, and much-needed discussion” on the sour state of racial relations in America.

In its manifest belief that the storm over Jeremiah Wright has given fresh evidence of a deep-seated and persistent racial stand-off in American society, and that prejudice resides to a more or less equal degree in the hearts of whites and blacks, the Times was simply following the lead of Obama himself. Both in his April 30 statement and in his heralded March 18 speech on race in Philadelphia, the candidate decried the enduring hold of our “old divisions”—divisions that, indeed, it has been the declared purpose of his campaign to heal and to transcend. He has also repeatedly referred to his Philadelphia speech as an effort to open up an honest national “conversation.” But are the candidate and the Times right on this matter of our divisions? And are they attempting to facilitate such a conversation, or instead to foreclose the possibility of one?

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping; thanks for posting, Jbny. WELCOME ABOARD!

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