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Race in America

Years since Martin Luther King’s assassination: 40
Days since Barack Obama’s speech on race in America: 17

The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial column this morning by Juan Williams (of NPR News fame). Mr. Williams argues that Senator Obama has broken with Dr. King’s spirit and message:

"So far, Mr. Obama has been content to let black people have their vision of him while white people hold to a separate, segregated reality. . . . [I]t is a key break from the King tradition to sell different messages to different audiences based on race, and to fail to challenge racial divisions in the nation."

–Juan Williams, "Obama and King," The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2008, A13.

Mr. Williams’s essential point is that Sen. Obama has sold his campaign to blacks as "the fruit of the struggles of King and others," but when he talks to whites, "race is coincidental, not central, to his political identity." Dr. King, by contrast, "spoke about black people as American patriots who believed in the democratic ideals of the country, in nonviolence and the Judeo-Christian ethic . . . . [and he] challenged white America to do the same, to live up to their ideals and create racial unity."

Mr. Williams does grudgingly admit, however, that Sen. Obama "is a politician and, unlike King, his goal is winning votes, not changing hearts." And sure, that fact certainly accounts for some differences in approach. But overall, I think the truth of Sen. Obama’s political image is more nuanced than Mr. Williams asserts. Sen. Obama’s campaign is a triumph in our country’s racial history, precisely because so many voters are able to see Sen. Obama’s racial heritage as incidental to his politics. While I am not African-American, I venture to guess that the very universality of Sen. Obama’s appeal is precisely what thrills individuals of that heritage — because it is an unmistakeable indication that racism is no longer a controlling factor in the minds of the country's voters (well, at least not a majority of them).

I couldn’t agree more that America needs a transcending of racial divides — that is, a rising above. I just don’t think Sen. Obama is doing such a bad job of that as Mr. Williams claims.