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He's Preaching to A Choir I've Left

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And today, there is an entire generation of young people who know nothing of segregation, who see one another as individuals, not as symbols of a dark past. They do not look into white faces and see, as I once did, a burning cross, a white sheet and a vicious dog on a police officer's leash. This is the coalition pushing for a new America.

Some blacks will remain ever distrustful of mainstream America. They cite the noose-hanging incident last year in Jena, La., and the killing of a black man in New York City on the eve of his wedding as evidence that nothing has changed. They praise the Rev. Wright and, like Lawrence Guyot, say that he should continue using the same incendiary language "as long as it is true."

Others, like Miller, believe that the mirror-gazing days of Wright-speak are over. "You have to turn away; if you look too long, it's narcissistic," he says. "Sometimes you have to be radical and smash the mirror. And then you go outside and take your rightful place in the world."

Perhaps Obama's campaign -- with its call for unity and for transcending the negative characteristics of race -- is part of breaking with a painful past. Many of us, blacks as well as whites, hope so.

rosebook1@aol.com

Jonetta Rose Barras is the political analyst for National Public Radio affiliate WAMU-88.5.

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