Obama Needs to Take a Stand on Race and Other Issues

By JUAN WILLIAMS

Wall Street Jouranl
August 28, 2008; Page A15

There is a powerful, often painful, thread of memory in the American mind with regard to race. It is a flowing narrative from the time of slavery to the Civil War and on to the nation's struggle for racial equality. That story includes Martin Luther King's life and death as a martyr. Today the story continues in a nation where one-third of the population is made up of racial minorities. There is also an unprecedented number of immigrants and record levels of prosperity among the black and Hispanic middle-class.

Now we have Barack Obama's astonishing political rise, advancing the story to the point where a majority white nation might possibly select him as its first president of color.

For Sen. Obama's supporters and much of the American media, the message of this neatly packaged story is that the Illinois senator is the man who fulfills King's dream. "Had it not been for that speech," Mr. Obama told the Rocky Mountain News last week, "I very likely wouldn't be standing in Invesco [field] to accept the nomination from my party." He told USA Today he plans to pay tribute to King tonight, and use the speech to express "pride in how much this country has transformed itself in my lifetime . . . I don't think we can shy away from the significance of that."

More than 90% of black Americans are now on board with that story line, and according to polls, more than a third of black voters say his race is either the most important factor or one key factor in explaining their support for Mr. Obama. His race is at least a key issue for about a quarter of white voters as well, and that percentage is going up. Many white voters -- especially young people -- appreciate Mr. Obama as the biracial candidate capable of moving America to a new day, and past its legacy of endless racial tensions.

Yet given this central racial dynamic, it is incredible that on any issue of racial consequence Mr. Obama has become a stealth candidate. It is arguably smart politics not to focus on potentially controversial racial issues when you are a black man running in an election with an electorate that is more than 75% white. But how is it possible that Mr. Obama, as he rises to claim the mantle of Dr. King before 75,000 people and a national TV audience of millions here tonight, remains a mystery on the most important civil rights issues of our day?

Mr. Obama is nowhere man when it comes time to speak out on reforming big city public schools, with their criminally high dropout rates for minority children. He apparently refuses to do it for fear that supporting vouchers or doing anything to strengthen charter schools will alienate vote-rich unions. His rare references to the critical argument over affirmative action -- an issue that is on several state ballots this fall -- give both opponents and supporters reason to think he might be on their side. He has had little if anything to say about the persistent 25% poverty rate in black America.

The only speech Mr. Obama has given on race came after his minister's racist rants became public. In that celebrated talk he defended Rev. Jeremiah Wright, while at the same time distancing himself from the rants. That quick escape did not work, because Rev. Wright continued to spew vitriol -- threatening the campaign with questions about whether Mr. Obama subscribed to the same angry, anti-American views. It was only rational for voters to ask how he could have kept silent in the face of the minister's sermons over 20 years.

Time and again, the man who draws so openly on King's legacy refuses to sacrifice an iota of possible political support by taking a principled stand on matters of racial justice that King said are matters of right and wrong. Instead, Obama makes cryptic or general comments that leave his position on important racial issues ambiguous or unknown.

All of this can be written off as a politician in search of votes moving to the ideological middle, to accommodate public opinion as he focuses on winning. It might be said he is not a captive of any set ideology. John McCain has had his own flaws and changes of heart on a few issues in this election season.

But this is not a game in which all the players and issues are the same and everyone has dirty hands. Racial justice is beyond bargaining. And a special responsibility falls on Mr. Obama, because he has come to represent not just another presidential candidate, but a reflection of the nation's desire to heal its racial wounds.

The uneasy truth may be that Mr. Obama is not worried about alienating white voters with his stands on race. It is more likely that he fears having to speak the truth about the poor -- who are disproportionately black and Latino -- needing to take more responsibility for family breakdown, bad schools, thug-life culture and high poverty rates.

A 2007 Pew poll found that nearly 40% of blacks said the poor have become so divorced from middle-class values that they are a separate race. Mr. Obama has to know this tension exists. When he spoke in a black church about the need for black men to be good fathers it may have angered the Jesse Jacksons of the world. But it was a rare moment when he was willing to reveal himself and speak on an important racial issue. It did him no political harm; it may have helped him.

In the bad old days of legal segregation many white politicians would not take a stand, either. Men like Orval Faubus and Strom Thurmond used to make a political show of opposing what they called "race mixing" and equal rights for all. Later in life they said they had not been racists, but didn't want to risk losing elections to segregationist candidates who made outright racial appeals. Faubus and Thurmond did win elections. But sadly for them, there is no bargaining with history about accommodating injustice and particularly racism.

Whatever good they did in their political careers is a footnote compared to the corruption they advanced with their public accommodation of racism. Their failure to stand on principle prolonged segregation, damaging people and the nation.

If Mr. Obama is really to remind the nation of Martin Luther King, he might follow King's example of taking a moral stand. King did not vacillate on his call for civil rights laws, voting rights laws or fair housing laws. He took a stand even with his own supporters. In his historic speech on Aug. 28, 1963, King declared "there is something that I must say to my people," and then spoke against bitterness, hatred and violence even in the name of "gaining our rightful place" and freedom.

Now it is Mr. Obama's turn to speak as a moral conscience on race -- if only because it is the only truly effective way he can put the race issue behind him. Then he can begin filling in the specifics of his plans for the economy, dealing with terrorists and the war in Iraq. That will give voters a chance to realize the nation's dream of judging people on the content of their character and leadership, not their race.

Mr. Williams, a political analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News, is author of several books, including "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965" (Penguin, 1988).