Joan--I'm a big fan, but I do think your missing the point by parsing Obama's speech and interview comments so closely. Step back for a sec and take a look at the main points he's making:

(1) The anger that many black people feel and the social problems that afflict them disproportionately in America are, in part, the legacy of slavery and discrimination.

(2) Many white people, who feel that they are not responsible for the discrimination black people have been subjected to, resent it when blacks are given what they consider to be preferential treatment.

(3) Sometimes black people feel and express prejudice toward whites.

(4) Sometimes white people feel and express prejudice toward blacks.

I don't see anything very controversial or remarkable about any of this, except for the fact that we are not used to hearing such plain speaking on this topic from a candidate for President. Which is what made it a wonderful speech.

I think that weeping for brunhilde has it just about exactly right here:

"The problem with our discussions of race and racism is that white people are so defensive they can't bear the idea that they might harbor racist thinking or, more accurately, racist responses that anyone growing up in this country, black people included, have been conditioned to have.

We've all been saturated in negative images of black people so of course we all have negative associations with black people on some level.

The question is, what level, and are we dealing with it.

But Obama was offering his grandmother as a way of relating to white people who have imbibed racism with the culture.

He was saying it's possible to be victimized by racism and still be a good human being.

He's trying to get us beyond the false dichotomy of racist/not racist.

It's precisely this false dichotomy that keeps us stuck.

No one wants to admit they might have racist responses or thoughts because they think that means that then they're a bad person and no one wants to be a bad person."

In my experience, there are very few white people who haven't at one or more times, thought, felt, said something prejudiced about black people. It's just so deeply ingrained in our culture, it doesn't mean we are all racist, but we have to stop pretending that we're past all that--we're not.

Race remains the single most defining issue in America. Let's deal with it, Joan, and not worry so much about Barack Obama's grandmother.

KateTex--

You write,

"When I sat down at the computer very late, all it took was one look at this thread to finally believe that the Democratic party is set for a major fall come November. It's just gotten too ugly, too partisan, too bitter, too nasty, too messianic, too, too...everything, in here and on message boards all over the Net. Joan Walsh writes the mildest of messages about Obama - and many of you want her head on a platter?"

I completely agree with you, but if I understand from your post that you are attributing the harshness of the dialogue to Obama supporters exclusively or more than Clinton supporters, I have to disagree. I am dismayed by much of what I read here and on Huffington Post, the other site I read regularly, but I think harsh comments come from supporters of all the candidates. For some reason, lots of people seem to be taking all of this way too personally, when they disagree with someone they make personal attacks, particularly about their motivation. Surely the high decibel and low intellectual level of most commentary and debate on TV and radio doesn't help.

I'd like to think that we can do better here.

@AKA Smith

Hey, my ancestors were living and periodically being persecuted in Poland and Russia until they came here in the early 1900's, so they surely didn't have any responsibility for the slave trade. So what?

My point (and Obama's, I think) had absolutely nothing to do with whether anyone should feel "guilty" about slavery, Jim Crow, or the pervasive racial discrimination that has existed in this country for most of its history. In fact, many immigrant groups were subjected to severe discrimination as well, for example, the Chinese, Irish, Jewish, Mexican, etc., etc. For lots of reasons, discrimination against blacks has been the most pervasive and longest-lasting.

The point is that if we want to make things better in our society, as at least some of us would like to do, we have to acknowledge the past and the impact it continues to have today. We certainly can debate what should be done as a result of it; some may say, "affirmative action," and others may say, "absolutely nothing, let them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps." It's fine to have that debate, but we won't get anywhere if we pretend either that slavery and racial discrimination didn't happen or that it doesn't matter, so long as we weren't personally responsible for it.

Finally, I didn't say, nor do I think, that everyone is a "racist." What I said, and what I believe, is that generally speaking, people tend to identify with their own racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, etc. groups. There is nothing wrong with that, but at times it makes us fear other people and judge and assume things about other people based not on their individual characteristics, but based on our beliefs (whether accurate or not) about the group(s) to which those other people belong. We do it all the time; sometimes it is relatively harmless, sometimes it is tragic.

Again, none of this seems even slightly controversial to me, the problem is that we don't like to talk about it or deal with it.