The Hideous Woods

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Al Sharpton criticizing Barack Obama for urging non-violence in the Sean Bell verdict protest puts into dramatic relief the major racial conflict of our time – and it is inside the African-American community, not outside. Unfortunately for all of us, Obama — whose instincts should have been better on this matter — has found himself trapped between appeasing these race baiters (and their constituencies) and taking what is truly a progressive (note the use of the word) stand against them because of his twenty year association with Reverend Wright. The candidate’s speech on racism, so lauded in the press, actually worsened the situation by implying an equivalency between the reverend’s excrescences and his own grandmother’s fear of being mugged. That Obama could even think this way makes us wonder about his ability to lead us out of these particular woods. And woods they are indeed.