I watched the Moyers interview. I watched the press conference. I heard the questions, the puerile ones and the more sensible ones (to the degree MSM can be sensible) and I watched Rev. Wright's response. My feeling is that Barack Obama is correct. Jeremiah Wright is 66 years old. Barack Obama is 46 years old. When Dr. King was assassinated, Rev. Wright was a grown man and Barack Obama was a child. Dr. Wright cannot easily distance himself from the most incandescent fury of the 1960s because he saw it up close and personally. He was there. Barack was not. There are many black people who were born in the 1960s that weren't old enough to see this kind of America. The kind of America that just got done lynching black people no matter where they were in the country, East, West, North or South. The kind of America that believed in the lie that was "separate but equal." Barack Obama was too young to experience that kind of America. Rev. Wright never has forgotten that kind of America, and it's obvious that he carries that wound in him. Obama spoke to that wound in his speech. But what we see here is a generational thing. Black people of Obama's generation have had a different experience than their parents did. It can be very hard for parents to see that their kids have a different life than they do and that the world can change in fundamental ways and has. As far as Dr. Wright's generation is concerned, that kind of America is still very much with us, and he's not entirely wrong. But what's also true is that America as a country, in fits and starts, in a way that no one really watches has become less racist, less resistant to the notion that we really are not that much different and the differences are ones we can live with and even find interesting. Black and white people born in the 1960s are now living in an America that is more open and tolerant than the America the previous generation lived in. To what degree is open for debate I suppose. It's obvious to me that Jeremiah Wright really struggles with this.

Having said all this, Barack Obama is running for President of the United States. He should take the generational mantle of leadership and continue to talk of reconciliation, talk of healing, talk of understanding and the progress that has been made despite what Dr. Wright says and set the tone for the conversation that we need to have now in this time. There are some aspects of this that we have gotten past. That should be acknowledged. Now we need to talk about what we haven't figured out yet. Unfortunately, as smart as Wright is, and as informed about history and theology as he is, he's not contributing to it. He's not the right man to speak to this because he's not resolved it within himself. Barack Obama has a golden opportunity to use this moment to advance the goal of understanding and reconciliation and I think he should seize it straightaway.

There comes a time when we all break in some way with our parents, our teachers and our mentors and forge our own path. It's necessary and sometimes painful, but rarely so public as what we've seen today. This is a fracturing of a very complex relationship that has evolved over years of time. I could see the pain and the anger that Obama must be feeling. One conclusion that you could draw from this that I think anybody can relate to is the love you have for a parent or a teacher even when you have your own ideas. It's possible the two men have always disagreed over their respective visions of America which, as I said earlier are rooted in two very different times and experienced by two different generations. I think the truth might be closer to this: that it's possible to recognize this country's original sin, and recognize the distance we've traveled towards something better. If we had not traveled this distance as a nation, Barack Obama's candidacy and fervent support would simply not be possible. It's not wrong for black people to recognize this, nor is it wrong for white people to acknowledge what the past has been. Then together, we can move forward. This is what Obama's campaign has been about and why it's so unifying and hopeful. Rev. Wright does not see this. He refuses to see this. Because he is trapped by his time, he cannot see the possibility of redemption. This is what saddens me personally about his generation. My stepfather was much the same way, while I saw a world that had changed and had at least to some degree loosened up enough to let me just be a man who happens to be black, not a BLACK man. There's a difference. That's what's on display here. Remember Sidney Poitier's great line from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" where he talks about how his father had always seen himself as a BLACK man, while he himself saw himself as just a man? We were a long way as a culture from that when this movie came out. We're a fair bit closer to it now and that's worth acknowledging. This is why this candidacy can exist now and it's also why this falling out had to happen.

The past gives way to the future.

And the student becomes the teacher.