The Audacity Of Complexity

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"Sometimes I wonder if some white Republicans actually believe that black people in this country have no reason to feel any anger or alienation at times."

Some white Republicans? Try most. And probably a good chunk of white Democrats as well. Many people want to believe in the basic goodness of this country. If there were some problems in the past, well, now they’ve all been fixed, so any lingering anger or distrust on the part of black people must mean that they hate America. I think every white person in America must have heard some version of this line of thought from at least one of their relatives at some point. My family is quite liberal and I’ve heard it.

Obama is trying to get white people to be honest about this as well as to understand where black anger comes from and why criticism and dissent is not incompatible with being fully American. At the same time he is trying to get African-Americans to be honest about the fact that things are not the same as they were a generation ago and that one of the great things about this country is that change for the better is possible. This is one more area where Obama embraces authentic complexity and rejects simplistic half-truths.