That Race Speech...

Across the street from America's birthplace, and flanked by a long line of stars and stripes, Sen. Barack Obama delivered what some consider a monumental speech addressing the role of race in the upcoming presidential election, as well as the current state of race relations within the United States.

Distancing himself from incendiary statements made by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama evoked his own biracial genealogy and forced to the backburner—at least temporarily—the controversy over Wright's remarks, while bringing to the forefront the realities understood within the African-American community.

"The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in Rev. Wright's sermons," said Obama, "simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning."

Earlier this month, video footage of Wright, who in February retired from the Senior Pastor position at Trinity United Church of Christ, a mega-church in Chicago, Ill., was uploaded to the popular video-sharing site YouTube, and was subsequently aired on television news networks. Among the clips were sermons in which Wright criticized the American government, implying that the HIV/AIDS virus was a government-sponsored plot to kill African-Americans or referring to the country as the "U.S. of KKKA."

While he distanced himself from the remarks, calling them "wrong" and "divisive," Obama still stood by his spiritual leader and friend: "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother—a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

He continued, "These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love."

While throughout his campaign, he has fought to prevent his campaign from being defined by race, Obama chose to place himself in the middle of the country's racial debate. Calling on the inward desire for unity among citizens of a country polarized along racial lines, he plead that the focus of political discourse be on the substantive issues of today and stray from sensationalized coverage racial issues.

"We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies… But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction."

Despite his disagreement with these particular statements of his pastor, Obama defended Wright as a servant of the black community, as well as a personal friend and spiritual advisor.

"As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect."

Yet Wright's ties to Nation of Islam leader Luis Farrakhan, a man whose endorsement Obama did not immediately renounce, may scare away voters who question the candidate's views towards Israel. Farrakhan, who has preached anti-Semitic rhetoric in the past, traveled with Wright and former Democratic presidential nominee, Jesse Jackson to Libya and Syria in 1984. In 2007, Trumpet Magazine, a publication edited by two of Wright's daughters presented Farrakhan with the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award, suggesting a relationship between the Islamic leader and the Reverend.

By downplaying the impact of Wright's statements while focusing on the country's current racial dilemmas, Obama cast himself as the facilitator in the national discourse on race, a role he had previously worked to avoid during his run for the presidency. However, Obama, evoking the United States' storied racial history, expressed a desire for increased discussion of the racial divides plaguing the country.

"…We may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction—towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren."