He's Preaching to A Choir I've Left

Concedes Miller: "Some people need to hear" Wright's words. "It's looking in the mirror to get a better self-concept."

In my years as a black nationalist, I often spelled America in my poems with a "k" -- sometimes three. I believed that organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan couldn't possibly have operated and prospered without permission, tacit or otherwise, and support from the U.S. government. It seemed logical to conclude that racism and injustice were fundamental, inherent elements of the United States -- of its government, its policies and its institutions.

In those days, I believed that I was in a serious battle for my future. My fiery words were part of an effort to persuade myself that I had the power to break out of the narrow confines created by segregation. And I sought to seduce others to join in the fight. We could not permit the discrimination we faced daily to beat us down.

I never met the Rev. Wright during this explosive period of my life. But I met and listened to others whose speeches were equally blistering and damning of the United States, its government and its economic system. I even flirted with the ideology of a black separatist group.

Obama doesn't share my heritage. But as a child of mixed-race parentage and culture, surely he, too, struggled for his place in a society that has not always been welcoming to mulattos. His white family loved him, but more than an ocean separated him from his black father and relatives. I know what it's like to long for a father, having never known my own. Perhaps Obama found a surrogate black family in Trinity Church.

"Obama had to go to a church" like Trinity, says Miller. "That was part of his homecoming, part of his self-discovery."

That other African Americans and I were able to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles is undeniably due, in part, to Wright-like prophetic speech. Like Negro spirituals, it helped us organize, motivate and empower ourselves.

But just as spirituals eventually lost their relevance and potency as an organizing tool against discrimination -- even as they retained their historical importance in the African American cultural narrative -- so, I believe, has Wright-speak lost its place. It's harmful and ultimately can't provide healing. And it's outdated in the 21st century.

I came to this realization gradually. As I expanded my associations and experiences -- organizing in places such as San Francisco, Providence, R.I., Patterson, N.J. and Northeast Washington, meeting caring Hispanics, Asians and whites -- I came to know that we are all more alike than different. I saw that our dreams sat inside each other. All of us wanted a better America, not so much for ourselves as for our children, and their children. Achieving this meant that we had to get beyond our past segregated lives and work together, inspiring the best in ourselves -- not the bitterness and the biases.

This is Obama's message. "I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together," he said last week in a somber, historic address about race, racism and our country's future, presenting grievances on both sides: the pain and anger of blacks and the resentments of working- and middle-class whites.

Earlier, he had denounced Wright's words and dismissed the minister from his ceremonial campaign role. But in his speech he also made clear that he could no more distance himself from his former black pastor than he could from his white grandmother, both of whom are imperfect people.

I understand this sentiment. I have not removed myself from people in my community who continue to rely on Wright-speak. We simply engage in debates. But their numbers are diminishing. More and more African Americans are coming to understand what we have in common with other Americans. Whites, Hispanics and Asians seem to be going through similar metamorphoses. What else can account for the surprising support Obama has received among non-blacks?