Pitts: Transcending race is proving difficult

By Rick Dandes
The Daily Item

Sun, May 18 2008

— LEWISBURG -- Americans need to move beyond issues of race when examining the candidacy of Barack Obama, but that has proven difficult for some people, both black and white, who look at him and only see his color, to the exclusion of everything else he stands for.
Pulitizer prize-winning newspaper columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. made this point, and others in a meditation on race and politics, before a mesmerized, standing-room-only audience Monday night at Trout Auditorium on the Bucknell campus. The speech, "America's Second Black President: Race, Politics & Obama," was the latest in the university's speaker series, "The Citizen and Politics and America."
Pitts spoke with eloquence and humor througout as 35-minute speech, showing a firm grasp and appreciation of the nation's "first serious African-American candidate for president.
"Bill Clinton, of course, was America's first black president," Pitts began, "but now we have the very real possibility of an African American becoming president The problem with all this, is that the Obama-Clinton contest has inevitably touched on issues of race.
"The Clintons didn't create the race issue," he said, "but they've exploited what already existed."
Pitts then took affront a the comments made by Geraldine Ferraro, when she said that "if Obama were not black, this phenom would not have been a phenom."
"Now, I can relate to how Obama must have felt about that," Pitts said. "I've spent 45 years learning how to write well, and I want to take the rest of my life learning how to write well. But, a few years ago, I was honored to win a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and I have to say, it was nice to be recognized. I got many wonderful congratulatory emails. But it is interesting when someone tries to take that sense of accomplishment away from you. I got a few notes saying I won only because I was black."
About the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Pitts said, "people have every right to question Obama about his relationship to Rev. Wright."
Pitts said, "many of Wright's comments were crazy and I don't excuse that craziness or condone it. He was raised in a era where he couldn't live out his dreams. Where he rode on the back of his bus. Where he couldn't vote. His bitterness has distorted his personality. He allowed his anger to warp him. But, I do understand where that anger came from."
In a way, Pitts said, Obama is a human Rorschach test," he said. "He shows us where we have fallen short. He shows us where we need to do better.
"When you examine the issues, Obama and Hillary have very much the same policy ideas, with some small variations. So, it's come down to a character issue."
Pitts contends that with all of our problems, what this country needs now is a leader with political courage, who is willing to put his career and party at risk to do the right thing.
"I like Barack Obama not because he is black, but because I have come to realize this is a man with something important to say to all of us," he said.

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