Obama can bridge the divide

The media continually and erroneously refer to Sen. Hillary Clinton as the first woman to seek her party’s nomination for president, concealing her race privilege. In reality, she is the first white woman to do so. When Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran in 1972, her name was always preceded by the adjective black. This showed then, as it does now in the outrage over Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s angry words, white America’s willful ignorance of its racial history and legacy. Ironically, it is the pluralistic black Christian church that provided leaders in the struggle for social justice to move America toward fulfilling its creed, and it has been a voice for racial reconciliation. That cannot be said of many white Christian denominations that either preached a gospel of white supremacy or stood silent while others did. Even today, the radical Christian right dispatches race-baiting rhetoric without much argument from the larger white Christian community (Remember Sen. McCain’s embrace of Bob Jones University, where interracial dating was outlawed?) Where is the outrage? One reason why Sen. Barack Obama is a refreshing and potentially transformative choice for the electorate is because he understands our racial conundrum and will help us bridge this recurring, unproductive divide.