Healing the Wounds of Race

[katty]

Healing the Wounds of Race
Jim Wallis

more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/healing-the-wounds-of-rac_b_92072.html

It has simmered throughout this campaign, and now race has exploded into the center of the media debate about the presidential race. Just when a black political leader is calling us all to a new level of responsibility, hope, and unity; the old and divisive rhetoric of race from both blacks and whites is rearing its ugly head to bring down the best chance we have had for years of finally moving forward.

And that is indeed the real issue here. A black man is closer to possibly becoming president than ever before in American history. And this black man is not even running as "a black man" but as a new kind of political leader who believes the country is ready for a new kind of politics. But a new kind of politics and a new face for political leadership is deeply threatening to all the forces that represent the old kind of politics in America. And all the rising focus on race in this election campaign has one purpose and one purpose alone -- to stop Barack Obama from becoming President of the United States.

Barack Obama should win or lose his Party's nomination or the presidency based on the positions he takes regarding the great issues of our time and his capacity to lead the country and America's role in the world. He must not win or lose because of the old politics of race in America. That would be a tragedy for all of us.

The cable news stations and talk radio are playing carefully selected excerpts of the most potentially incendiary statements from Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery sermons, the retiring pastor of Barack Obama and his family's home Trinity Church in Chicago. Obama, while affirming the tremendous work his church has done in his city and around the nation, has condemned the most controversial remarks of his pastor.