No. we had many and deep racial tensions way before Obama spoke. the idea that they aren’t there as long as no one mentions them is childish–psychologist call it one version of magical thinking (if we just don’t look under the bed the monster isn’t there).
i agree that he sure didn’t ‘ease’ racial tensions, but i don’t think he claimed that was the purpose of that speech or any one speech. the purpose was 1. to get himself out of the hole his Wright connection had landed him in, and 2. to use the occasion to ‘get into it’–to go ahead and start a conversation on these horrible, difficult subjects, knowing full well that he would not come out a winner on every item, or with every listener.

so, discuss away–that is the healthy result of his speech, and his contribution to–well, me and you–that he will get no thanks for, but that has great value nonetheless.

i can’t wait to see what the self-satisfied ‘experts’ here will say about his more recent upsetting speech on how bitter 30 or 40 years of abandonment have left small town working class Americans. i guess the tendency here will be to deny that this bitterness is there, and to ‘blame’ him for mentioning it.
but it is there, and it had better be addressed, and anyone who has spent time in the rust belt–yes, PA is at the belt-buckle of the rust belt–will know what he’s talking about, and will not think the bitterness results from his mentioning it.

obama is no saint, and not yet impressively presidential, but he is a remarkable politician in America for saying what so many have been choosing not to hear for so long.

If his ineptness in handling the Rev. Wright situation is any indication of his future performance in dealing with the more complex problems of the Presidency, we could be in real trouble.

We have a substantial way to go, yes, but there are many who are striving to make it possible to more forward. recognizing that we have a problem is not (or does not need to be) defeatist. it can be a great contribution, a necessary step on the way to some resolution.

My post included no particular claim that morals are or should be chosen ‘relativistically’ which i would have trouble even understanding. But i did write and meant that Wright’s awful pronouncements are not nearly the craziest things, or not the only crazy and obnoxious things,people hear from the pulpit each week. And, people sit there, and come back each week. and no, they don’t argue with their pastors or rebbes about the various things they don’t agree with–I wrote that Obama is no better nor worse in this regard. i lumped him in with all the other sheep who don’t challenge these idiot leaders. i don’t respect him for it, nor you for being so imperfectly literate as to have read in my post only what you came to it already thinking.
i did go on to say that i thought the wright controversy small change compared to the deep and terrible issues we have with race. that is a comparison of evils, and therefore in the most literal sense it is ‘relativistic,’ but only in a way i am sure you preach and practice, too: we believe some sins or errors worse than others.
I find Wright disgusting, but i find our ability to self-delude, to evade and attempt escape from the issues of racism and bigotry (and yes, this certainly includes anti-semitism and homophobia)to be more damaging to our country. And i did find Obama’s speech on these issues to have advanced this discussion. and your insults not to have done.

1 = a number
2 = a number
therefore 1 = 2
yah. uh huh.