Kmiec writes, "without reconciliation with Reverend Wright, the [Obama] campaign will be off kilter." It is Obama's background with Wright, not generally known six months ago, that has put his campaign off kilter.

With his white mother, Kenyan father, and international granola upbringing, Obama was an American of (literally) African descent who was not, or did not appear to be, an African-American, i.e. someone whose ancestral experience involved slavery and Jim Crow. His campaign did not embrace the language of African-American grievance, and his person (like that of Tiger Woods and J Lo) pointed towards a post-racial society in which racial categories do not matter.

Obama therefore gave white Americans the chance to absolve themselves of racism by voting for a President who was nominally black and who pointed to a future in which our racist past would be irrelevant. It's been 50 years since the legal end of Jim Crow and almost 150 since the abolition of slavery. Modern white Americans who are the heirs of historic white privilege but who were not personally involved in segregation would like to be forgiven and allowed to feel that they do owe their black contemporaries anything. They get petulant when they are not forgiven but held morally responsible for something they feel that they did not personally do.

Obama tacitly promised that forgiveness. Wright negates it. He is a reminder that large numbers of African-Americans, not all of them elderly, have been taught by bitter history to resent, distrust, and suspect their white fellow citizens. If Obama concedes that Wright's view of the world is a legitimate one, even if mistaken, and displays personal sympathy with him, he ceases to offer many white voters what they wanted from his candidacy, which was to finesse the African-American grievance away by consigning it to an outgrown past. Wright reminds us that, as Faulker wrote, The past isn't dead; it isn't even past."

Jack - I've read something like this argument before. It is a bit cynical for my tastes, but I'll voice another opinion.

What does it mean to be "white" in America. It means lots of different things, just like, I assume, what being black means in America. It depends on your parents, where you grew up, what your experience is.

I am "white." Actually, I am of English, Irish, and East Indian descent. I have surname that is very Irish, but I have very dark almost black hair and big round brown eyes, like my mother's. When I was young no would guess that I was Irish from the way I looked. Most guesses were that I was Italian.

I grew up in the same neighborhood that Michelle Obama grew up in. In the 60s and 70s that neighborhood experienced a significant amount of "white flight" so that by 1975, I was one of 2 whites in my 7th grade class.

Why my mother (father was gone by 1975), decided to stay in the neighborhood is another entry in itself. My mother is 1/2 Irish and 1/2 East Indian. She looks very Southern Italian and in the Irish neighborhood in which she grew up, my guess is that she was very much an outsider.

I hadn't gone to school with so many white folks until I went to college.

What if I said I feel part black, or "mixed," as we used to say of children who had one black parent and one white parent. I actually wrote to Brent Staples, author of Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White about this feeling once. I got no response. I talk about this part of my experience with very few people; only with those whom I think might even have an ounce of empathy.

But what if we could all come to understand ourselves based on our experiences?

I can't talk about white guilt very well. At least consciously, I don't believe that I have supported Barack because of the "tacitly promised forgiveness." I think I supported him b/c I thought he was like me. And I think that the young folks with whom I am acquainted see themselves in Barack. That generation has much more experience with many different cultures in a way that I find refreshing.

The past will never die. Isn't that what Faulker meant? And I experienced people who distrusted white folks so much that even in the presence of a white child they could not mask their bitterness. I also experienced people who could see that white children were not little devils, just children.

It wasn't until I was an adult, practicing law, that I came across some really scary white folks. The kind that my childhood neighbors thought I might be. I think it was those scary white folks that Barack also knew, but didn't grow up with, to whom he was referring to in the "bitter" and "cling" comments. He looked like a snob when he said them, but I think he's afraid of them, just like some black folks are afraid (rightly so) of traveling to certain rural parts of this country. I think that was more about fear (and anger) than anything else.

Wright didn't negate promised forgiveness. He negated the goodness of humanity. He could have really opened a dialogue about these issues. But he felt personally attacked and he hit back. I'm not saying that there aren't people out there who wanted to do him harm. But those folks were the scary white folks I was referring to earlier. They were not going to vote for Barack in the first place, ever.

As a religious leader Wright could have talked about what makes us good humans. He could have talked about what makes us bad humans. He could have related his personal trials and tribulations and how he overcame them. He could have talked about how the teachings of Jesus made him a better human. But he chose differently.

jack_cerf: You are so out of touch it is laughable. You sound like every other white liberal who has never even met a working class white person before and therefore incorrectly thinks every white person is just like him.

Just to correct you on your massive misunderstanding of why whites are still voting for barrack, here are some corrections to your extremely flawed thinking:

1. Whites are not looking for forgiveness. Most whites, the ones that are mentally stable, don't feel they need forgiveness because they didn't do anything in the first place. Just because the media tries to convice white people they are guilty of something they never did, doesn't mean they believe it.

2. Being white does not mean you have any sort of "privelege." Try telling that to working class whites, you are likely to get your ass kicked, and rightfully so. Just because YOU were priveleged doesn't mean there is some universal privelege for being white. If that were the case there wouldn't be such a thing as working class whites.

3. People are voting for Barack because they know Bush fucked up the economy and sent our kids to die in an unjust war. Thats pretty much it. People vote for a president because they think he will benefit them personally. No one but a white-guilt liberal douchebag like yourself would vote for someone out of a sense of guilt for something they didn't even do.

Sorry, fella, but you're wrong on a number of counts.

First, I've had plenty of the experience you think I haven't, including factory work and a two year hitch as a common grunt, during which I had the sense to keep my mouth shut and nod my head a lot.

Second, ask yourself whether you'd rather be a dumb white guy or a dumb black guy in this country. As a dumb white guy, you get continually screwed over, but at least you are the paradigm of what is normal, and you're not an object of suspicion just for walking down the street. As a dumb black guy, you've constantly got to prove yourself as safe, competent and respectable in the eyes of every white person you meet. Think of the response people have to a lower class Southern accent, and then multiply that by a thousand.

Third, you don't know the "white-guilt liberal douchebag" mind, as you call it. There are plenty of people out there who have chosen Obama precisely because they will feel better about themselves if he is President. Personal benefit includes appeal to the emotions in general, and confirmation of one's sense of one's own superiority in particular. Anyone who believes that people vote only their material self interest is apt to be misled and disappointed over and over.