Color Words

I was surprised that Obama's race speech garnered such an intense negative reaction among so many educated Republicans who are well left of Pat Buchanan. A lot of that concentrated on the appearance of weaseling out of his church connection, or obscuring the depth of his debt to Rev. Wright, I suppose. And many who slammed those qualities took a line or to to praise the general tenor of his rhetoric when it was purely about race in America. And partly, too, they may fear him as a candidate.

But a lot of my peers also went after his word-painting as enshrining victimhood, or worse things.

So I wonder how they will take to this?

"Black Americans were a founding population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding." As a result, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that."

That's Condi Rice talking, in an interview with the Washington Times.

It seems to me utterly unobjectionable as history, consistent with modern American patriotism (and even with current Republican party membership), and a view any compassionate thinking person could have. It doesn't tell you what to do about it. But it obviously opens that discussion along some familiar lines.

Good enough for you?