Local leaders: Speech put tough topic on the table

Barack Obama trotted out the elephant in the room in a speech on Tuesday when he addressed the issue of race in America more overtly than he has at any other point during his presidential campaign.

The speech was partly in response to inflammatory comments made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., a national leader among African-American churches.

We asked five community leaders to weigh in on what Obama's speech meant to them, to their communities and to the ongoing presidential campaign.

Not entirely new, but important anyway

The speech wasn't exactly groundbreaking, but it got us all — especially younger people — talking about race, said Ed Taylor, an associate professor at the University of Washington.

"There's a whole generation that's hungry for some conversation on this topic," said Taylor, who has written on the social construction of racial identity in America.

"In some ways, [Obama] is saying the same old things again, but this time he's adding a personal assertion, giving a face and a public voice to these issues, and he's doing it in front of the nation during a presidential campaign. That takes a certain boldness," Taylor said.

"Some will say [the speech] was wonderful, some will say it was shallow. Either way, I've spent the morning talking about issues," he said. "And that's important."

"I was in tears listening to it"

The speech was bigger than politics, and bigger than this presidential campaign, said Pramila Jayapal, the executive director of Hate Free Zone. It was a long-overdue and powerful admission that racism is still a major problem in this country, she said.

"As an immigrant and a woman of color, I was blown away by the honesty and the complexity of the discussion," said Jayapal, saying she did not speak on behalf of Hate Free Zone, a nonprofit that serves immigrant and minority populations.

The speech didn't oversimplify a complex dialogue that's rooted in 300 years of history, she said. "This is not an overnight kind of issue. You can't solve it in a speech. But at least the door is open now, to discuss it," she said.

"When he said, 'I can no more disown my past than I can disown my white grandmother,' I think a lot of people in this country — immigrants and people of color — understood that on a truly visceral level. I was in tears listening to it, and I know a lot of other people were, too."

A nice speech, but just political expediency?

Obama knows how to deliver a good speech, but it hardly makes up for having spent 20 years as a member of a congregation that was at times hateful, anti-American and racist, says Dori Monson, a local talk-show host.

"I don't know [Obama] personally, so I have to ask, are his words for political expediency, or did he believe in what the Reverend Wright was saying in the 20 years he regarded him as a reverential figure in his life?" Monson said.

"I remain troubled that he chose to attend a church where there was a clear anti-American, racist, anti-Semitic voice."

Come together, right now, over me

Obama's speech attempted to identify the nexus where race, religion and politics in this country intersect, said Dick Staub, broadcaster and author of "The Culturally Savvy Christian." The conclusion? That nexus is Barack Obama.

"He says religion is part of the race problem, and the race problem is tied up in politics and if you want to understand where Jeremiah Wright is coming from, take a look at segregated schools," Staub said. "And then he says that if you want unity, you have to find a way to understand all those layers, to understand each other, even the people with whom you disagree."

Staub continued, "Obama finishes this whole thing, all these complex layerings, and says, 'If you want something other than division, then I'm your guy.'

"There are definitely undertones of that Beatles song, 'Come together, right now, over me!' "

It was just as much about religion as race

It's in Obama's interest to talk about race in the context of faith, says David Domke, an associate professor of communications at the University of Washington. And that's exactly what he did.

"For white Americans, faith is a connector. If he were just giving a speech about race all by itself, I don't think that message of unity and togetherness would have worked," Domke said. "But faith moves people from a cynical, divisive posture to a position in which they consider possibilities."

But if Obama's "race speech," as it has been dubbed on YouTube, is just as much about religion, it's no less politically courageous, says Domke. "He didn't run away from the fault line of race as an issue in America. He spent a half-hour talking about things that politicians make a living from running away from."

Haley Edwards: 206-464-2745 or hedwards@seattletimes.com