Reply #2: Yes . . . but . . .

[ChicagoRonin]

Watching and reading the reaction to Obama's speech, it seems that there's a lot of white folks going around saying, "Yeah, I understand that there are some white people who harbor racist attitudes towards black people, but I'm not one of them."

Thing is, I don't at all think he was pointing fingers, laying blame or making accusations. In simple terms, I saw his speech as saying that there are two sides to the issue of race (perhaps more than two, perhaps infinite) and that what we need to do is have honest dialogue.

It actually frightens me that a lot of people have immediately read into his words some kind of threats, warnings or equivocations, and then react with, "Well, Senator Obama is just WRONG because that ain't me he's talking about."

My apologies, the above thoughts are not as coherent or well-written as well as I would have liked as I'm trying to hammer out thoughts at the end of the work day.

I'm a straight Asian American male born in this country, for what it's worth.