IHT : An effort to bridge a divide

An effort to bridge a divide

By Jodi Kantor | March 19, 2008

Since he was very young, Senator Barack Obama has been something of a mediator of racial concerns, shuttling between black and white worlds and trying to translate the concerns of one to the other.

He did it in his family. He did it at Harvard Law School. And on Tuesday morning, he assumed that role nationally, trying to allay voters' concerns about statements by his pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright, and staking his presidential candidacy on his ability to explain black grievances to white people and white resentment to black people.

In a way, Obama seemed to be arguing not only for his own candidacy but also against the often-reductive nature of presidential politics. To answer the brief, incendiary clips of his pastor's statements that have been dominating television airwaves and the Internet, Obama made a long, nuanced speech, seeming to bet that voters will care enough about him and the race to give it many minutes of attention and thought.

The address, which Obama wrote himself, seemed partly like a historical refresher course for white voters on discrimination against African-Americans.

"We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," he said. He proceeded to do just that, referring to slavery, Jim Crow laws, Brown v. Board of Education, economic and job discrimination against blacks, and a lack of services in urban neighborhoods. These are the conditions, he said, which gave rise to the kind of anger that fueled Wright's statements, which earned the pastor accusations of being unpatriotic and anti-white.

But a moment later, Mr. Obama seemed to turn his words toward African-Americans, explaining why white people often seem just as resentful about racial matters as those who have faced more discrimination.

"When they are told to bus their children to a school across town, when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed, when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudice, resentment builds over time," Obama said.

The speech violated several conventions of campaign discourse — for one, the injunction that all politicians must speak about racial and ethnic groups in upbeat stereotypes. "He didn't romanticize us," said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of Politics and African-American Studies at Princeton University, who used to attend services at Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, when she lived in Chicago. "We're brilliant, and we're stupid," she said, echoing Obama. "We're hopeful, and we're angry."

Presidential politics usually requires candidates to either wholly adopt or reject positions and people. Obama did neither with his pastor, rejecting his most divisive statements but also filling in the picture of Wright and his church.

"The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America," Obama said.

It was one of several times that Obama seemed to be quite purposefully arguing two ideas at once — another dangerous tactic in presidential politics, in which statements are sifted for hints of contradiction and every speech is an attack ad waiting to happen. He admitted that his pastor is both a divisive figure and an inspiring one. He said that his candidacy should not be viewed through a merely racial lens, though racial reconciliation is one of the reasons he ran.

In interviews, Democratic and Republican strategists, scholars, and voters all agreed that Obama had given a brave, incisive speech about one of the topics most difficult to address in American life. But nearly all of them expressed doubt that his address will fully put to rest the firestorm over Wright's statements.

"It was a superb speech," said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist not currently affiliated with any presidential campaign. "It was a speech every bit as powerful as you'd expect from Barack Obama. But I don't know that it solves his problem."

"The thing that would really help him is if Reverend Wright came out and apologized," said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative group that studies religious issues and public policy. One of Wright's most criticized comments is his assertion that corrupt United States foreign policy brought about the Sept. 11 attacks; now he must retract that statement, said Cromartie, just as the Rev. Jerry Falwell apologized after he blamed the attacks in part on gay people and those who have performed abortions.

Obama aimed his speech directly at voters like Linda Smith, a 64-year-old retired teacher from Fishers, Iowa, a lifelong Republican who flirted with voting for her first Democrat — Obama — until she heard his pastor's words. "To me Wright's comments were outrageous and undo everything Barack says he's trying to do, which is unite people," she said. She tuned in eagerly to hear Obama's address, which struck her as sincere and thoughtful. "It helped me understand a little bit how he could tolerate Wright's comments," she said.

But Obama has not yet won her back to his side. "I still don't quite understand completely why he would stay in a church like that, unless it's a typical black church," she said.

"There's a large black church here in Indianapolis," she mused, "and I just can't believe the minister talks like that."