Letters to the Editor
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Joan, I have to hope you move past this.
"So what next? As someone who's worked for many years to close the racial divide, I have to hope Obama moves past this."
I think Obama has moved past this, and it is Hillary supporters and posts and articles like this one that continue to insist that Obama do the impossible: have a hard conversation about race, but never say anything that anyone could possibly take the wrong way; and that refuse to even ask why in her 35 years of service Hillary has not made any effort to also elevate our national discussion about gender, about discrimination or even about race.
For someone who continues to claim that she is not biased in this election, it seems so strange to me that you would continue to focus on Obama and these particularly nit-picky criticisms of his speech and his comments yesterday. On a news day and even a news week where so many other things have happened (Richardson's endorsement, the Politico post, McCain's gaffes, Bill Clinton's "mugging" comments, the passport files), what is the point of continuing to complain that Obama was unfair to his grandmother?
How can you title your post "Moving beyond Obama and race" but then use your post as an opportunity to continue to criticize Obama for not meeting an impossible standard. If you listened to the full quote from Obama, it's clear that he was trying, clumsily, to say that in many ways the fear his grandmother felt when she saw a black man she didn't know was typical of many other white men and women of her generation. To imply that Obama does not know how extraordinary his grandmother is or how remarkable their relationship is, is really the worst kind of spin. It also completely diverts attention away from the substantive issue of how do we begin to tackle our fears of an unknown a racial and cultural other, both real and imagined and instead makes the whole issue about Obama and what you think he should or shouldn't have said.
You claim that you want us to join the conversation on race, but then you use your turn at the mike to criticize Obama and insist that disagreement with you is based on readers' preconceptions and not a legitimate quarrel with you and your strange take on this entire issue.
Obama gave one of the most honest, and complicated analyses of race I've ever heard from a politician. It is more than anyone expected he would do and it did more to suggest that we could in fact begin to find some common ground. His speech gave us a place to start a discussion that we desperately need to have. As someone who claims to have worked to close the racial divide, I don't understand why for you that isn't something to be thankful for or why it isn't something to urge more politicians and more of your readers to also do.