Martin Luther King Day and stubbing toes on race

Obama's Martin Luther King speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta got a lot of media coverage and lots of play of his line:

"We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late."

However, the media wasn't so quick to include this bit:

"We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity."

Yes, Obama went to the black community and essentially said, "You are also being bigots and it must end." Wonderful stuff!

This won't be an attack on the media about leaving that bit out, but on the issue of bigotry in the campaign. This is a step in the right direction by Obama to atone for the incident with the ex-gay gospel singer a few months ago. We'll see whether he can follow that with action.

But the more interesting aspect of the speech is to wonder why Edwards and Hillary weren't saying something similar. True, it would have been difficult for either to go into the black community and tell the audience they are being bigoted. Charges of racism would have been thick. But they haven't gone into their own communities (mill workers and trial lawyers for Edwards and women's groups for Hillary) to talk about the bigotry that exists there.

In a situation where the speaker and audience are of different races the charge of racism is almost reflexive. The audience feels uncomfortable with the message and charges the speaker with being racist. The speaker responds with defense, "I can't possibly be racist." The real issue is obscured. A better way would be for the speaker to say, "Perhaps I am. Could you explain how I offended you so I don't do it again?" The audience will have to actually examine the speaker's message. Alas, today's politicians won't (or can't) bring themselves to say such an admission. Their foes would jump all over them.

The charges and denials of racism flared in the Democratic race around the New Hampshire primary. Both Clinton and Obama made mistakes which intensified the problem. Though both seem to have agreed race-baiting helps neither side, according to columnist Stephen Henderson it showed Obama may be in an impossible situation:

"You're forced to take sides in America's racial debate, and to prove to every possible faction that you're exactly -- and exclusively -- the black person they expect you to be."

All this talk of racism as well as much of what Huckabee says, according to columnist Tom Walsh:

" This nation needs to get over its hypersensitivity about who's insulting whom with an ill-chosen phrase, who's doing what in their bedrooms and who believes what about the hereafter. It's time to focus on the here and now of how to compete in a dynamic global economy, how to create companies and more good jobs and how best to educate our children to cope in a world that no longer kowtows to the notion that the United States gets to make all the rules."