PRESIDENTIAL RACE RELATIONS & THE HAMMER

The title sounds so pompous, but it seems that prejudice, positive prejudice. and efforts to understand the difference have come to light in a new way. I just watched an episode of "The View" and thought it was very unsettling. Maybe that's a good idea, to discuss race in an open manner without bitterness. But I don't think we're there yet and maybe even going back a little. Whoopi Goldberg speaks as a black person and tells Elizabeth that she, as a white person, can not ever take off her "white goggles." I read a wonderful book by Shelby Steele, "A Bound Man" and he addresses the issue of Obama's candidacy in a sensitive and insightful manner. I don't think it is helpful in any way to use one's race as a sacred hammer to pound in the fact that it's impossible and futile for one person to try to understand another unless they're the same color. The hope does lie with our children and the future, but why close the door on the present. And to assume that you speak for an entire race just because you are of that race seem to me to be presumptive and demeaning.