The Obama Speech: A more perfect union

Watch it:



It will not be enough for those who wallow in the issue of race; it'll be made fun of and dismissed. Many of those who've had the right to vote since day one, the right to own property, the right to own slaves, don't see that great a need to reconcile.

I do.

You see the need when the Confederate Flag is flown, swastikas painted on synagogues, the epithets thrown in ignorance.

I'm not sure one person can truly change the nature of our current discourse, our current politics, diminish the resentment that seethes from both sides:

He challenged Americans to learn something about their country, to seek to understand those whose emotions seem threatening, wrong-headed, even un-American. He asked whites to understand that the anger behind Rev. Wright's comments, while paralyzing, was also valid, the result of decades and centuries of real discrimination and oppression suffered by African Americans. And he asked blacks to understand that whites who resent affirmative action and whose fears of crime lead them to stereotype blacks should not be dismissed as racists, because their concerns and fears are real and valid, too.

But if anyone can change the dynamic, here and now, it's Barack Obama. He proved it with this speech today. The next question is how many saw that proof.