Perhaps it was a fitting sign of things to come as the sound system at Philly's Constitution Center had a few snags. So Barack Obama's speech was delayed for 30-40 minutes Tuesday. You could imagine the technicians asking, "Can you hear me now?" And, indeed, that is the question I have for the nation after I heard Obama's remarkable speech on race in America.
From many of the pundits -- the usual mouthpieces on network TV and on cable -- it is evident that they did not hear what they were not prepared to hear, even as they replayed snippets from Obama's speech. Many kept asking why he put race out there. He did not. Others did and he responded brilliantly. Many asked if he went far enough in distancing himself from his longtime, now retired, pastor. And then they proceeded to display their ignorance of the complicated nature of Black Christianity in the U.S. and how foreign any Black worship service is to them, no matter the denomination, the geography, the history. Many asked if race will hound Obama for the rest of the campaign. Only they -- the hounding media -- can answer that.
Some people heard. They got it. This is not just about denouncing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is not just about walking a tightrope between Black and White. This is about the new world he envisions and challenges us to join him in creating.
I'll have more to say on this later, but for now I invite you to see -- and hear -- Obama by going to his website:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords
Via National Public Radio (NPR), you can find audio and a transcript:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88473796
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