The Elephant in the Room

Reverend Wright made the list in a Washington Post piece on Saturday, titled A Few Obama Thank-Yous:

In Liberty Baptist church, my childhood place of worship, I heard it preached: "Sometimes a stumbling block can be a steppingstone in disguise."

Wright, Obama's former pastor, may have fulfilled that wise saying. Without Wright's fiery and controversial sermons, short segments of which were repeatedly aired in the media, Obama would not have delivered his "A More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia.

The whole affair allowed Obama to address head-on the elephant in the room -- race. Obama did it with candor and a sensitivity that reflected an insightful understanding of this American dilemma. It was a rare and reassuring performance by a presidential hopeful.

Excerpted from the speech:

I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is 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 yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

There is something transcendent about Barack Obama, not limited to the issue of race. He provides the promise of being able to rise above partisan politics and has persuaded tens of millions of Americans to believe in his vision for America. While I recognize the historic quality of his election, this race was not about about race because he never allowed it to be. Instead, he proved himself to be the most qualified of the two dozen or so candidates that emerged over the past two years to engage on all of the issues we face. At the conclusion of that journey, he himself fulfilled the promise of an American dream.