as his supporters see him: eloquent, visionary, brave, inspiring; however, in the words of the old hymn I remain "almost persuaded."

Back dropped by American flags, Senator Barack Obama today delivered a memorable and poignant speech about race in the United States.  By no means will it quiet all the questions surrounding the Senator's relationship with his former pastor, Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright nor does it stand on par with Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech; I even doubt that it will raise the intellectual tone of our country's continuing discussion on race.  Still, for me, it presented Barack Obama in a sincere, somewhat more humble, largely uncondescending way which I have never before seen.  The end of the speech - a verbal picture of the bond between an elderly black man and a young white woman - moved me to tears.

Being a daughter of the south and the Gentile mother of a son whose father is Jewish, I empathized with the dichotomies of which Senator Obama spoke.  I have had friends who were so good to me and then, without a beat, opened their mouths and uttered the foulest, racist epithets.  I have sat in board rooms and listened to anti-Semitic jokes told by people who did not know my son's father was Jewish.  I have stood in work hallways open mouthed and listened to intelligent people relate their racist tales about the origins of the black race; tales so stupid and wrong headed that initially my response could only be, "You're kidding right?  That's just a really really distasteful joke, right?  You couldn't possibly believe that, right?"  I have a mother who loves her first born grandson more than she does her own life and yet refers to him as her "little Jew boy" and that's when she's not angry with him or me.

Against all of this lives the memory of my sainted father.  Born into the backwoods of Tennessee, he watched his mother bleed to death from a bullet wound when he was only four years old.  Virtually put out of his family by his oh so Christian step-mother, he left school after eighth grade because she wouldn't buy him a pair of long pants for graduation and he would have been the only boy on stage in short pants.  He was 42 when I was born and though a soft touch for down on their luckers of any color, he had a definite racist twist born of being brought up by and loving people who thought that way; yet my father was not frozen in time.  Despite having a redneck right wing evangelist half brother who preached at a church only miles from our home, he eventually chose to become a member of a more moderate Baptist church.  Despite beiing thirty years retired from the Army, he learned by being friends with a young gay man that homosexuality was - to use his word - "okay."  Despite probably growing up in a home where some male family members wore the abhorrent hood of the KKK, one of his regrets as he lay dying of pancreatic cancer was that he would not be able to testify on behalf of a black woman in her bias suit against her employer.  And never once did he ever make any remark about the race of my son's father.

Therein lies the rub for me when reflecting on the words of Senator Obama's speech.  I understand his refusal to repudiate Reverend Dr. Wright; in fact, I respect it.  If Senator Obama were to throw over his friend and mentor of twenty years, how could we depend on him to have our backs in time of trouble?  I also understand that the black worship experience is totally outside the experience of most white worshippers.  Black churches are infused with energy and emotion that are, to be honest, a little scary to some white congregations.  Black ministers have often times preached a social gospel that not only affected change but gave its believers a way to live through the horrors of slavery followed by the near back breaking burdens of years of racism and segregation.    

I am troubled though because while I did hear him say that he was aware of Jeremiah Wright's incendiary comments, I never heard him say he discussed those comments with the minister. In the midst of a storm of hatred and racism, Senator Obama reacted with a strange, detached passivity.  Even in the face of his eloquence I am once again struck by his "make of me what you need" persona.  It is not enough to acknowledge that there are legitimate resentments on both sides.  It is not enough to be the conduit through which our desires for racial healing are channelled.  In the last analysis, despite the beauty of his words, the authenticity of his feelings, the sincerity of his desire to unite us and the unique racial position he holds amongst all of the candidates, I did not feel the authority of leadership required to actually bring the country together. 

Senator Obama need not repudiate Reverend Dr. Wright but, for me, he does need to stop trying to be everything to everyone.  I don't want to make him into what I want him to be, I want to know who he is.  As Robert Bolt had Sir Thomas More say in A Man for All Seasons:  "Is there, in the midst of all this muscle, no sinew that serves no appetite of Norfolk's, but is just Norfolk?"          

Draw a line in the sand, Senator Obama.  Say, "here I stand" - maybe then I'll be able to join the choir.