My father-in-law is a retired Episcopal priest.  For years he offered up great "thinking" sermons Sunday after Sunday.  I loved to listen to these sermons.  He baptized my children and helped perform the marriage ceremony for me and his daughter. 

During those Sundays, he never spoke of "ridin' dirty" or of us having disasters coming to us, so while I wasn't offended by the comments made by Barack Obama's minister, I was irritated by them.  Sadly, I don't get offended by much anymore.  I've posted Reverend Wright's comments on my site.  And I've posted comments critical of Obama's handling of the issue on the site as well.

So when I read Peggy Noonan's editorial on the situation in The Wall Street Journal, I was critical again:  A "thinking man's speech?" 

"The primary rhetorical virtue of the speech can be found in two words, endemic and Faulkner. Endemic is the kind of word political consultants don't let politicians use because 72% of Americans don't understand it. This lowest-common-denominator thinking, based on dizzy polling, has long degraded American discourse. When Obama said Mr. Wright wrongly encouraged "a view that sees white racism as endemic," everyone understood. Because they're not, actually, stupid. As for Faulkner -- well, this was an American politician quoting William Faulkner: "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." This is a thought, an interesting one, which means most current politicians would never share it."

I listened to the speech in my car (John Phillips has it on his web site).  I was more struck by the equivocation that I heard in Obama's speech.  I was struck by his comments about his mother.  I found the speech to be -- pardon the obvious nature of the expression -- self-serving.

I was also struck by the dilemma that Obama found himself in.  Liberals like Obama -- black, white or whatever -- have, on issue after issue, brought down opponents by painting them with the brush of innuendo, association and race.  They have traditionally been the arbiters of fairness.  Republicans visit Bob Jones University, and they talk about the "implications" of such visits.  Republicans take money from an individual who makes off-color remarks and the appearance "tells a story."  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

I have struggled with the fact that the "post-racial" candidate is the only candidate talking about race.  And there it was in the speech again.  A sense that whites can't understand because they are a different color.  The funny thing is that I agree.  I am certain that I can't fully understand. 

But then it must follow that he was saying there is, in fact, a difference.  Recognizing differences in cultures and even skin color doesn't have to be racist yet we have a society that is being told that recognizing that very thing is somehow wrong.  The very politicians who have endorsed Obama have perpetuated the problem that they claim to be solving.

Obama can't choose to be "post-racial" one day and on the other point out the color of every member of his family.  I remember the mild stir that was caused when George H.W. Bush was pointing to his grandchildren and noted "the little brown one."

I submit that we are not in a post-racial world and there is no advantage to being so.  Our strength is our diversity.  Pretending that different colors and cultures don't exist or don't matter creates many more problems than it solves.  Are we to be color-blind or color-conscience?

I went back and listened to a couple of my father-in-law's sermons and what struck me about them was how uplifting they were.  They addressed tough questions but remained reassuring and even inspiring.  Wright's sermons seemed to whip up anger where my father-in-law's seemed to ask more of us, all the while completely expecting it.  I even found an appropriate passage in his sermon during one of my sons' baptisms:

"There is a heresy at loose.  Has been for years, probably will continue to be.  One which we must always be aware of and on guard against, John.  And Andrew Lytle speaks to this also.  He says: 'The great Puritan heresy puts evil in the object:  In a deck of cards, in an offensive four-letter word, in a woman's hair, in dancing.  But evil cannot be in the object.  It must be in the mind and the heart.  That's the only place it can ever be.'  I hope you learn that too. . .I hope you also learn to beware the golden calf.  Beware any beast or any being, anything that pretends to be God Almighty.  And I wish for you a sense of humor.  It will put everything, including yourself, John, into perspective.  And there will be those times when it just might save your head, or heart, or both."