...I saw Obama's speech as trying to bridge that divide--to say, as someone who had one foot in each community, "This is why the way they do things you don't like--not because they're different, but because they're very much like you." To be sure, he did it in a hamfisted way. But the grandmother example was, I thought, less an attempt to throw Grandma under the bus then to say that "racism is not the same thing as being an evil person". I'd venture to say that most white people know at least one older person who is both an extremely good, moral and virtuous person, and a racist. When it is a grandmother, a beloved teacher, a longtime employer, or a friend's parent, we discount their unacceptable beliefs, because we have personal proof of their general goodness. Thus we come to understand that good people can have very bad ideas. I think it was perfectly fair of Obama to extend that same charity to Reverend Wright.
What I love so much about Megan's post is that it rejects ideology and offers some humanity to this whole debate over this whole "state of racism" business. It's a great post. By all means check it out.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2008/05/and-now-for-some-reconcilliation/5172/
