I think, without a doubt, Obama's speech definitely advanced the dialogue. I thought it was the most complex, layered speech on race I've ever heard from a politician. Furthermore, it was one of the brainiest meditations on any subject I've ever heard from a presidential candidate so close to the White House. But I think Glenn makes a great point. The talking heads are running around claiming this is the greatest speech on race since "I Have a Dream." But we should be wary because history and race are two of the MSM's biggest blind-spots. The hamfisted, slack manner in which they've handled Obama's racial identity (last year he wasn't black enough, now he's too black) is evidence that these are the last people to we should turn to for answers on something as nuanced as this. In fact, I think that's the sort of question that can not, and should not, be answered today. Let's see what happens. Then we can judge the historical import of "The Speech."

That aside, as we look forward we have a huge problem when it comes to closing the racial gap. But first some qualification: To talk about this broadly in terms of race, I think misses the point. Since "The Speech," I've seen some folks asking why Obama didn't talk more about issues affecting the Latino community. I've seen a few others, mostly in the blogosphere, wishing that he'd addressed gender issues. I think what would immediately help is some specificity. We need to distinguish between the run of the mill prejudice inherent in virtually all societies, and the black-white chasm that's been with us since our founding. What I believe Obama was addressing, was something different than the nativist bias that's now being visited upon Hispanics. No disrespect to America's great ethnic gumbo, but this conversation is about black people and white people.

By saying that, I don't mean to claim that racism itself is only about black and white people. What I mean is that the divide between black and white goes beyond prejudice and right to the very core of how white America has always defined itself. The concept of "white people" has proved itself to be very malleable, integrating people who initially were never thought of as white (Irish, Italians, potentially even Mexicans). But black people are the great insoluble. Having been since the country's founding, black people are still the most segregated group in America. Slavery, the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement weren't just about racism writ large, they were about the gulf between black and white. What I am trying to say is that while there may need to be a "National Conversation About Racism," I think history shows that, over the long term, America has coped fairly well with the protean concept of race. But it hasn't coped particularly well with black people.

I hate to present the case that way, because I don't want folks to feel like they're excluded from the conversation, nor do I think they should be. But we misjudge the depth of the waters into which we wade if we think that America's long history of racism is simply about people not liking each other because they're different. The black-white chasm is so much deeper than that at this point. We would do well to avoid obscuring this complicated issue by trying to pull together some "Rainbow, Kumbaya, all-the-races-under-God moment." It's not that I'm opposed to that. But, as I've said, it greatly misjudges what we're facing.

So to start, I think it'd be helpful to focus the discussion on the historic black-white gulf. I think that, going forward, we must acknowledge the progress that's been made. We've got to be able to talk and chew gum, and say that things have, at once, gotten a lot better, and yet we still face incredible challenges. Now for the hard part: I think there has to be some acknowledging of history, and a dismissal of the power of white guilt. What I mean is we can't be afraid to look at the past because it makes people feel bad. Following that, looking at history, policy-makers have to start acknowledging that the past has direct impact on the state of affairs today.

But having done that, I think that black folks have to understand that whatever happens from here on out, is going to be a compromise. There's a place in The Audacity of Hope (don't have the passage at hand) where Obama basically says that for better or worse, white America's will to tangibly redress the racial gap is not particularly strong, if it ever was to begin with. That's an initially depressing thought, but I think one way around that is to stop talking about the black-white gap in moral terms, and start talking about in hard-headed, tangible, self-interested terms. In other words, we have to make a critical mass of Americans understand that it's in their interest to heal this ancient wound, that white people aren't doing black people a favor by talking about race, they're saving the country. We have start discussing this like it's a national security issue.

We err when we talk about racism as this force that ultimately helps whites, but hurts blacks. The truth is that white people have paid terribly for America's original sin. Consider that while other countries were able to relatively peaceably excise themselves from slavery, America had to sacrifice some 700,000 of its young in order to move forward. That is a horrible toll. Look at the Civil Rights movement and compare, say, the fates of Atlanta and Birmingham, and then look at how the two cities handle the impending epoch of integration. I confess no hard evidence here, but is it a mistake that some of the least prosperous states in the country are also some of the most historically anti-black? Beyond history, from the perspective of cold capitalism, we are in a dog fight for dominance with rising powers. Isn't every black child we lose to a broken educational system a soldier lost before we could even enlist her for the coming battle?

At some point, this has to move beyond a "do the right thing white people" discussion and become a "this is for the good of America" discussion. We have to start convincing people that closing the racial gap helps everyone. The good news is we're starting to see some action that moves down that path. Glenn rightly alluded to the continuing crisis of the large portion of black men residing behind bars. One of the more promising developments is that states are starting to own up to some of the foolishness of their criminal justice policies. But they're not doing it out of any love for black folks, they're doing it because it's in their economic interest—they simply can't afford to keep warehousing black men. I think there's a light in that reasoning. We have to begin to show people how this discussion benefits them.

I would like to take a moment to respond to Glenn's response to Obama's speech. I find this endlessly fascinating because the two of us are basically of two different generations. As Glenn said, he's of Rev. Wright's generation. I'm actually, I would say, a generation behind Obama, and I think that really influences a lot about how we see things—and where we differ. Specifically, I would take issue with Glenn's point about the "infantile narcissistic impulse" among black folks is supporting Obama.

It bears repeating that in every single presidential race since 1984 there has been a black candidate, but with the exception of Jesse Jackson, not one has been able to organize any real support among black folks. When Al Sharpton ran in 2004, he not only lost the District of Columbia to Howard Dean, in South Carolina, he lost the black vote to John Edwards and John Kerry. Thus the idea that there is some sort of knee-jerk support for the black guy mindset at work here strikes me as wrong.

Even in 2008, really right up until Obama's win in Iowa, Hillary Clinton's polling among black voters pointed toward dominance. After Iowa, it looked like it was going to be a fight—but no one saw Obama taking 90 percent of black voters. Two things happened. First, the Clinton machine took an approach to race that can be described as clumsy—and that's being charitable. I'm not just talking about the gaffes, I'm talking about the entire approach of basically going into states like South Carolina and securing big endorsements from preachers and the civil rights crowd, and then assuming that would deliver votes. It's exactly that sort of top-down organizing that has betrayed Clinton repeatedly, and it got her with black voters because Obama was able to basically bypass the gatekeepers and go right to the barbershops and beauty salons.

This leads to my second point. Obama is a gifted politician backed by a superior organization. Obama hasn't just beaten Clinton through some magical fairy dust—it's been through his own deft political skills and those of his team. (Compare Obama dealing with Rev. Wright with Clinton dealing with Bosnia.) Just as that's helped Obama with white voters, it's the same with black voters. I don't mean to say race isn't a factor. More to the point I would say, confronted with the entirety of the Obama package—the fact  that he's exceptionally intelligent, a great politician, has a great story, has an Ivy League pedigree, and is not just black, but almost flagrantly, self-identified black, as Glenn said—it's really hard for a black voter to say no. If Clarence Thomas had to run for the Supreme Court, I doubt he would have gotten much support from black folks. I mean, who listens to Alan Keyes? As for not being "the black candidate," that's a borderline racist media invention. Only black public figures are talked about in this way. No one tells Joe Lieberman that he can't be seen as "Jewish senator." Hillary Clinton has reveled in being the first woman to have a real shot at the White House. I also think it's condescending, and assumes that most of white America consists of prehistoric bigots.

I know this seems like an aside, but I think it goes right to heart of our discussion here. This relationship between blacks and whites, and between blacks of various generations, is complicated, twisted and beautiful. We've got to start talking about these things on a level that respects that convoluted beauty. We need to aggressively investigate generalization about black folks and white folks. We have to stop going off beliefs about who we are that were molded in the civil rights and black power '60s, and then hardened during the identity wars of the '80s and '90s. A lot has changed since. Intellectuals, writers, thinkers, pundits and talkers need to account for what has—and hasn't shifted—when we analyze the world. We can't simply go on what we feel is the case.