Obama Says US Cannot Ignore Race

Confronted with the recognition that black people do not, as a whole, view America as white people view it.

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has sought to tackle the issue of race and defuse a controversy over comments made by his former pastor.

Mr Obama said he understood the history of anger between black and white Americans but that the US could not afford to ignore race issues.

He referred to the uproar over what he called the Rev Jeremiah Wright’s “profoundly distorted view” of the US.

Mr Wright said the 9/11 attacks were like “chickens coming home to roost”.

After the remarks resurfaced, Mr Obama denounced them as “incendiary” and “completely inexcusable”.

He said he had not been present during the sermon at which the pastor made the comments, and that he had looked to Mr Wright for spiritual, not political, guidance.

Speaking in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a city seen as the cradle of US democracy, Mr Obama gave a speech that drew on America’s long history of racial inequality – and called on the US to move beyond it.

 I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community — Barack Obama

“The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races,” he said.

As the child of a black father and white mother, he said he understood the passions of both sides in what he called “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years” – and said he was not so naive as to believe it could be overcome in one election cycle.

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2008-03-18