I remember watching a reenactment of the Lincoln and Douglas.   I was shocked.   I remember clearly looking at the TV screen and realizing that Abraham Lincoln was a racist.    There is no question about it.     He had never met a man woman or child who was in favor of social and political equality between negroes and whites !!

Abraham Lincoln may have been the most enlightened man of his time, a great man, but he clearly believed that negroes were inherently inferior to whites.  He says so.

 So did my Grandfather.  I remember when I was sixteen.  It was the summer of 1968 and I was in Vicksburg Mississippi.  The subject of race came up.  I stated explicitly and bluntly that blacks were equal to whites.  My grandfather said I was full of it.  He admitted that Martin Luther King was as smart as any man, but all you had to do was to look around and it was obvious that blacks were inferior to whites statistically and biologically.  My grandmother was always trying to get me to pick up young girls.  It was a little embarrassing.  One day I went downtown to buy some clothes.  I was VERY aware of blacks, but didn't recognize arabs as a race per se.  I wasn't terribly bright sometimes.  Anyway I got back home and my grandmother immediately wanted to know if I had met any girls.  Not wanting to disappoint her I said the daughter of the shop owner was cute.  Yes she was arab and my grandmother was horrified.  I had almost no idea what the ensuing conversation was about and just wanted it to end.  The next day my grandmother was quite embarrassed and she started encouraging me to ask the young girl out on a date.

Just a few years ago, I remember being at an airport, it was during my traveling days.  There was a black woman behind the counter and someone made a comment about a massage or something like that.  I playfully offered my services to the woman.  The comment was silly, not salacious at all, but walking away from the counter I realized I had never made a comment like that to a black woman ever before in my life.

My daughter would have no problem dating blacks.  I suspect if events had been slightly different she would have married a black guy that she knew.

My daughter is more enlightened than I about race, who is in turn, more enlightened than my parents, who is in turn more enlightened than my grandparents who is in turn more enlightened than Abe Lincoln.  It is progress.  Real progress.

BUT  Faulkner was right

Rev Wright is stuck in the past.  As I said before he is in a state of sin.  I too am stuck, not like him though.

And so the past is still with us.  You say there is nothing to prevent a black man from working at Intel or going to Harvard.  But that doesn't mean that the effects of what happened in the 50's and 60's is gone… that the past is dead and buried. The past still continues.

If the past were dead and gone than Vietnam would not be an issue in the last presidential campaign.  If the past were dead and gone than race would not be an issue in this presidential campaign.

You are not right when you suggest that America has solved its race problems.  Those problems still exist.  If they didn't then people would not be talking about Rev. Wright.  Clinton wouldn't be saying that it's no big deal for Obama to win South Carolina, after all Jesse Jackson won that state too.  

Race issues still exist in America.  It is still very much worth discussing.  It is very much worth working on. 

What we don't need, IMHO, is the kind of rhetoric I have been hearing from the right.  The kind of rhetoric that says the five sentences uttered by Rev. Wright tell the whole story.  Yes what Wright said was divisive, but it was heard only by the members of that church.  It was heard only by the members of that church until Fox News and Talk Radio started playing the five sentences 24/7.  All black hate… all the time.  What is going on in the conservative media is to reinforce everything that is divisive and to use those statements to drive a wedge in our society.  Why would they do that you ask?  So that McCain can get 51%, just like Ruffini said.

Obama tries to get the discussion back on a healthy foundation and he is accused of throwing his grandmother under a bus.

No Charlie, the past is not dead and buried.  This country still faces serious issues with race.  It is time for a candidate who will help unite the country.

Rev Wright is not proof that Obama cannot unite this country.  In fact I believe the last couple of weeks is evidence to me that we very much need a democrat in the white house.