Is all lost?

I happened to be watching the recent interview of Barack Obama in which he said something like "My grandmother is a typical white person," the same grandmother of whom Obama had previously said, as part of his landmark speech about race, that she sometimes harbored fears of blacks and spoke in stereotypical terms about them.

My reaction to his "typical white person"comment was immediate. I knew two things: First, that it would add two more days to the news cycle on Obama's race-thingee; and second, that the Right would spin the remark into something damaging to Obama, likely that he was denigrating whites, painting them as racist as a group, and hence displaying his own racism.

Of course I was right on both counts. But my problem isn't with the Right's reaction, but rather with my own, a cringe. I realized that I wanted the racism question to go away, to disappear into the shadows, the same shadows that Obama's speech had shed light on. I was, I realized, part of that culture that would talk about race in private, but was still fearful of addressing it as a matter of public concern, and most fearful of a black person addressing it.

If I cringed--I, an enlightened one--is it likely that others could overcome that reaction? Can we change a culture--or even honestly acknowledge one of its powerful memes--in time to vote a truth-speaking black person into our highest office? Can we even nominate such a person to run for it? I'm beginning to think not.