Let me just try this idea out: we should talk about race, but we should always include a conversation about broader civil rights issues.

Yes, as the polite phrasing goes, African Americans have a “unique” history in this country.  That must be dealt with.  So do Native Americans.  That must be dealt with.  The concurrent sins of slavery and genocide are part of this country’s history that can’t be ignored.

But practically speaking, the issues are not all black and white as Ta-Nehisi Coates ably argues.  Not when we get down to the brass tacks of civil rights and really discuss what we’re unfairly denying people and what we need to do.  If we’re really going to discuss people’s rights to be free from harassment by the police, their rights to pursue their own happiness and to work for it, their rights to associate freely with others, to follow their own spiritual impulses and to marry whoever it is that they love, then we are way beyond black and white.

To me, all issues of race, creed and lifestyle are related and once we see that, things become more complicated but a lot of opportunities present themselves.

Glenn Loury said yesterday that, “I can’t get past the fact that Obama was negotiating with the American public on behalf of MY people in Philadelphia last week.”

But Obama didn’t presume to speak for the entire African American community, and I don’t think he ever would.  He was forced into a situation where people might interpret his words that way because it was the media’s obsession with Wright that turned the conversation into a black and white one.

It’s the media that’s generalizing here.  What does Hillary mean to women?  What does Obama mean to African Americans?  These are fine questions but they’re really not the important questions since these people want to be president of the entire country.

If I were Obama I’d be putting my fist through a wall every time I heard that I’m speaking for all African Americans.  It would drive me nuts.  I don’t know the answer to this rhetorical question but did Ralph Ellison consider himself a black novelist or a novelist?  I’ll never know but I bet he wished he had the liberty to think of himself as either one, when it suited him.

So Obama is forced to deal with Wright’s sermon.  It’s politics, it happens.  He deals with it well.  He treats the country, as John Stewart remarked, like adults, and he really won my respect when he did that.
But let’s get back to the core civil rights issues of the day.  Let’s get down to stopping police brutality against minority citizens, let’s get down to the issues of unfair prison sentencing and a broken death penalty system.  Let’s pardon everyone who is in jail for life because of minor law violations that added up to “three strikes and you’re out.”  Let’s tackle workplace discrimination against minorities, women and homosexuals.  Let’s let homosexuals serve openly in the military and have their marriages treated as valid by the IRS and the rest of the government.  Let’s find a way to make immigrants from Mexico, Asia and the rest of the world who have worked here for years as part of a shadow economy into actual citizens with the rights that they deserve.  Hell, let’s stop the government from snooping into people’s private conversations and correspondence without cause or warrant.

Get down to the issues of civil rights and it is no longer black and white.  This is where we find out common ground.  This is where Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton don’t have to represent their races and genders but can represent all of us as Americans who expect a fair shot at achieving our dreams and a government that treats us with dignity.