Well, he finally "went there."

I have written about the hopes and dreams I lodged in the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama. His wonderfully open demeanor and message of hope made me believe that, maybe, just maybe, things might move forward, both in politics and in racial matters, two contentious issues that torment and hold this country back. A year ago, almost to the day, I wrote about his wonderful speech at the commemoration of the "Selma Voting Rights March" of 2007.I was particularly moved when he spoke these words:

"Sometimes it's easy to just point at somebody else and say it's their fault, but oppression has a way of creeping into it. Reverend, it has a way of stunting yourself. You start telling yourself, Bishop, I can't do something. I can't read. I can't go to college. I can't start a business. I can't run for Congress. I can't run for the presidency. People start telling you-- you can't do something, after a while, you start believing it and part of what the civil rights movement was about was recognizing that we have to transform ourselves in order to transform the world. Mahatma Gandhi, great hero of Dr. King and the person who helped create the nonviolent movement around the world; he once said that you can't change the world if you haven't changed."

It was inspiring that a candidate - a Democratic candidate, no less - was willing to say that (if I might paraphrase): "Stop looking for someone to blame for your problems; first, look to changing yourself." I was awestruck. I became, if not truly a supporter of the Obama campaign, one who harbored a healthy respect for his courage and his candor.

Then, there was the incisive book from Shelby Steele titled "A Bound Man." In this wonderful book, Dr. Steele (a man who, incidently, holds much in common with Senator Obama, including interracial parents) examined the difficult road that the Senator must negotiate between the white and black political "worlds." He envisioned formidable but not insurmountable obstacles and sincerely hoped that Senator Obama would prove an exception to the experiences of past black candidates for the highest office in our land.

But, with his speech in Philadelphia on March 18, it is my opinion that Senator Obama has gone too far out on that precarious tightrope that was clearly mapped out by Dr. Steele. He used words and phrases that will sadly (if only in my opinion) have far-ranging repercussions. He said, among many things, the following:

"Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow." [Emphasis added]

There it is, front and center. The "L" word: legacy. Paraphrasing, the contemporary plight of black Americans is a legacy of slavery and discrimination. Perhaps, as is often said of me, I am overreacting. I hope so. But of all the political "hot words" that describe interracial strife in this country, the word legacy is my least favorite. In my opinion, the "L" word is the one single word that transfers the onus for all the problems black people suffer from in modern society squarely and specifically on the past. More specifically, it places that burden on white society. Again, simply in my opinion, that is just not the case.

Let me say, out front, that I do not disagree with Senator Obama that there truly is racial inequality in our nation. It is irrefutable. And, certainly, there is plenty of blame to go around. Where I differ with the junior Senator from Illinois is his focus. I have read enough, on both sides of the argument, to form an opinion on the seat of responsibility for racial inequality in the United States. That cannot be denied. However, the biggest stumbling block in the path of resolving this inequity has, for too long, been cast as the "white man’s burden." Truly, whites shoulder a part of the blame. But, as there is sufficient blame for all, Senator Obama would have done a significant service to his credibility if he had cast a wider net. He does not, it appears to me, have ample courage to "call out" his black supporters on this issue and directly challenge them to overcome history.

Instead, the Senator reverts to the stump speeches of his predecessors (I refer to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) and wheels out the same, shop-worn litany of white suppression of the America’s blacks. I will allow the Senator to lay out his logic for you:

"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students." And

"Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities." And

"A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for ones family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us."

There we have it. The white man’s deliberate oppression of black America is the root and branch cause of (and I will follow the Senator’s logical progression as closely as I am able):

1. Black underachievement in schools.

2. The income gap between black and white America

3. Urban blight

4. The decay of the black family and the proliferation of single-parent households

5. White neglect of the inner city infrastructure (I assume as a result of "white flight") is the reason for black-on-black crime and violence.

Sadly, there is nothing here new, innovative or, more clearly, of much use for achieving change. No new ideas, no uplifting rhetoric, no, well, substance. And, as if he had not already sufficiently flagellated white America, Senator Obama said the following:

"In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination [there he goes again] - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper."

You see, if only the white people would change, things would get better. If only we would spend more money on schools and inner cities, if only we would only get tougher on enforcing civil rights laws, if only we would only solve the disparate conviction rates for black criminals, if we would only "give a hand up not a handout" (sorry, Reverend Jackson), if only we (meaning, I assume, white America) would do what is right, all of these problems would start to disappear.

This, dear reader, is simply tired, useless and, in fact, counterproductive demagoguery. In my opinion, it is beneath a candidate of the quality of Senator Obama who has shown so much promise to so many people. We did not need (yet) another "angry black man" woodshed session. We (i.e. white America) have heard this rhetoric so very many times before. What we wanted - what we hoped for, frankly - was a little bit more of a wider net.

Would it not have served the purposes of fostering a overdue national conversation on race (and, again, I assume this is what Senator Obama would hope for) if he had been a little more Bill Cosby and a little less Jackson and Sharpton? I, for one, had hoped for more. Something along the lines of:

"No one needs to be convinced that we have problems with race relations in America. There is equal blame for blacks and whites. Slavery was a stain on the nation; Jim Crow laws were a blight on development of our black citizens. Segregation was a hurdle unnecessarily thrown into the path of the black people. Indeed, it has been a difficult and slow process for blacks to adapt to the many governmental programs initiated in the halcyon days of the 1960s and 1970s when civil rights made quantum leaps toward equality. White people are guilty for thinking that was enough. But black people are guilty as well for not grasping the lifeline that has been available for half a century. Instead, black people have reveled in welfare and the allure of a "gangster" lifestyle. Our rap music glorifies it. Our youth aspire to it at the expense of education. They see no hope of a better life for they have not dared to dream of what can be possible. Look at me. This is what is possible with hard work, dedication and a single-minded ambition to achieve something remarkable. I stand before you today as living proof that the American Dream exists for all our citizens, black, white, brown and yellow. I do not wish to stand alone. I say to my fellow black Americans: won’t you join me in affirming that our ancestors did not fight the righteous fights against slavery, Jim Crow and segregation in vain? There is room on this podium for all."

Now, those would have been words I would have really liked to hear.