Syl Jones: A house (still) divided

Somewhere in the middle of Barack Obama's speech about race in America, one can imagine him thinking, "I'm tiptoeing through a minefield and my feet haven't been blown off." Yet, that is. There's still time.

After all, the comments by his pastor Jeremiah Wright have been characterized as anti-American, and Obama himself has been cleverly linked to those comments. Bloggers and pundits even tied the earlier remarks of his wife, Michelle, into the ongoing controversy.

From a political point of view, Obama hit the ball out of the park with a sweeping, personal indictment of racial politics in what will be remembered in the black community as The Speech. He sought to communicate his unique perspective as an interracial American and to do so honestly, hoping that his listeners and his critics would engage as adults.

But here's what Obama couldn't and didn't say, because his political viability hung in the balance. Think of these as the redacted remarks from the junior senator from Illinois:

"Why am I being asked to justify the comments of a man who is free, as is any American, to say what he wishes, to express his unique point of view?

"How many of you have relatives -- not pastors but members of your immediate family -- who use the N word, who disparage blacks, Hispanics and Asians with regularity?

"Were you running for president, would you be expected to repudiate your grandmother or your crazy uncle or even your father for making what you might consider to be racist remarks? I don't think so.

"Why isn't it enough that I have come before you as a man and said that I want to bring us all together, and that I have shown you my own personal values time and time again? I did not call the Clinton campaign racist when they attempted to belittle me and my candidacy as 'a fairy tale.' I have stuck to the issues and have challenged Americans to think differently about the future without forgetting the past. I have repudiated extremism, condemned Louis Farrakhan, congratulated John McCain as a true American hero and talked about the importance of breaking down partisan politics so that the people's work can be accomplished. Why is this not enough?

"I suspect that even if I am elected president, what I actually do will never be enough, because the dead weight of those who are determined to win at any cost -- whether through racist invective or personal smear campaigns -- will bring this country down to its lowest common denominator. The truth is, even if I am ready to be president, America may not be ready for me.

"If we were having an adult discussion about race, and if the majority of you listening were able to accept the diversity of views that exist on this subject, I wouldn't need to say any of this. I would be judged on my merits as a man, without the persistent reading of tea leaves to which I have been subjected. That in itself is a sign of the systemic racism against which I am swimming in an attempt to change the course of the nation."

But Obama didn't say this. To rise to high office in America, a black candidate must always ensure that whites in, say, Allentown, are comfortable with him. He must never ask the electorate to understand, accept and even embrace the pain of black America. For in doing so, he would be invoking a national period of mourning -- the laying of a wreath on the tomb of untold multitudes who died because of racial injustice -- as a prerequisite for engaging in national racial reconciliation.

Until this occurs, not even the election of a Barack Obama as president will end our national obsession with race -- another golden opportunity squandered because too many Americans are unable to admit that the past is too persistently present to be forgotten.