I begin to fear that his supporters want to have a conversation about race more than they want to win the presidency. I begin to fear that they wish to express the liberal solidarity with blacks or their anger as black people more than they want to see him in the White House. I begin to fear that they want to air their grievances and nurse those grievances more than they want to save the world.

Speaking for myself, the point isn't that a conversation about race is more important than the presidency.

That's a false dichotomy.

The point is that, in order to accomplish the things we say we want, we have to form a working coalition and the only way to do that is to defeat the southern strategy once and for all.

The only way forward is, well, forward.

Moreover, it's not even about race per se, but about honesty.

Obama's speech on race wasn't just a great speech about race, it was a great speech.

Meaning it was honest, challenging, not pandering, uplifting, inspiring, courageous, etc.

It told us so much about his character, about how he sees the world and how he responds to "a crisis."

This is leadership.

Obama's premise is that, without strong leadership, the politics of division will win every time.

The premise is that someone needs to stand up to it, to overcome it.

I believe his assessment is correct: racial divisions, geographical divisions, scapegoating of immigrants, etc., prevents a genuinely populist or progressive or enlightened or whatever you want to call it agenda from gaining traction.

Without trust, nothing worthwhile can be accomplished.

All we can agree upon is to blow up Iran or that Arabs are bad news.

Obama's attempting to "change the mindset that got us into war" as well as the mindset that allows rightwing fearmongering to succeed.

No easy task, but an obligatory one, don't you think?

Winning for winning's sake won't cut it.

The victory has to mean something and it needs to involve us all in the vision.

It's about what kind of interpersonal bonds we form.

It's about brother's-keeperism.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

Mulling it over...

Julian is a beautiful name and yours is a beautiful soul.

We're all doing the best we can in this world, muddling along. Hopefully we can all, with a little bit of goodwill, effort and risk, muddle our way towards a better world.

Have you ever listened to or seen Wagner's opera?

It's deeply moving. Deep, deep, agonizing pathos.

So, so cathartic.

Thank you so much for you sincerity and thoughtfulness.

I have only one comment:

Once my wife and another couple were walking back from having dinner at night - and a couple of young black guys crossed from the other side of the street and walked up quickly behind us. I was absolutely ready for something to happen. They moved through our group and went ahead. Does that make me racist? I don't think so...

I'd suggest that that's the wrong question.

Getting beyond the binary racist/not-racist is, I believe, one of Obama's central premises.

Our facile reliance on this false dichotomy is a main culprit in the "stalemate" in which we find ourselves.

I'd recommend you not give in to this either/or thinking.

Frankly, the question whether your response "makes you a racist" is, I believe, something of a red herring, or at least, unproductive.

Part of our task is to think outside the box, to get beyond easy accusations and absolutions.

Does this make any sense?

He's a buffoon.

Pay him no mind.

It's hard to relate to, and Wagner's hardly typical opera.

If you're really interested, though, your best bet is to invest in a recording of the Valkyrie and just listen to it over and over, in the background, until you start to get drawn in. It's a whole new language, so the best way to acclimate yourself is to just give yourself over to it.

It'll be boring for awhile, but eventually, something should click in your head and you'll get it.

It's like Shakespeare. It requires a big investment initially, but once you get it, the rewards are endless.

It's interesting to me that there are so many articulate, passionate and original voices here who really have something to contribute to the conversation and yet the editor of Salon has so little.

Joan, perhaps it would help us all to understand where you're coming from, to understand the ways in which the personal is political to you!

As I asked earlier, if you have some experience "bridging the racial divide" or however you phrased it, why not share it with us and let us know what wisdom you have to offer based on that.

It's a little dismaying to me that someone who, as far as I can see, has such a minimal understanding of race and racism feels so comfortable pontificating about it.

Is this confidence itself one of the dimensions of white privilege?

Something to contemplate, I think.

On second thought, better still would be to get a hold of the dvd recording of the Metropolitan Opera's performance under James Levine. It comes complete with subtitles and the sets are traditional (rather than conceptual, which is trendy these days), so it makes for a good introduction.

Godspeed!

Amen.

Especially the moratorium on hackneyed and unproductive epithets masquerading as neutral teminology.