But Donuel, if we are to welcome the conversations that need to take place about race, then we need to talk about racism within the African American community--the "not black enough" racism.

We need to talk about blood quantum in the Native American community--the "not Indian enough" racism.

We need to talk about African American anti-Semitism, and we need to talk about immigrant African racism towards the historic African American community.

I work in a school building in the middle of a Somali, Hmong & growing Latino immigrant neighborhood, where not one Somali family will send their children. We have two Hmong families sending children to our school, and I think we are up 4 Latino families now. The rest are African American, most of whom get bussed into our school from outside the school's neighborhood boundaries.

Why? Families from the Somali, Latino & Asian community will tell you, without exception, the problem is the disrespectful, racist behavior of the African American students and families towards their communities of color, the racist taunting and bullying of their children by the African American kids, and the out of control dyfunctional sexual behavior, that is now causing public schools to segregate African American students into gendered classrooms when they hit puberty.

Now is that fair? Some of it, no. Some of it, yes. Is this an incredibly painful conversation about race that whites feel much more comfortable sweeping under the rug, under the guise of "it is racist to talk about inter-racial problems in urban schools".

There is an excellent article in yesterday's Boston Globe about Obama's problems with "The Race Issue". It is too long to cut and paste, but here are some snippets:

"Obama's odyssey on race
Once viewed skeptically by blacks; now hit by whites"

By Scott Helman
Globe Staff / March 20, 2008

CHICAGO - From the moment Barack Obama first inserted himself into black life in Chicago, he bore the hallmarks of an outsider: light skin; Ivy League education; international background; and views on race, history, and country that were at odds with the aggrieved worldview of much of the city's black community.

On the streets of the South Side, where the Black Panther movement, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson flowered, Obama was mocked as a dispossessed newcomer who failed to grasp the historical urgency of the black struggle. "The white man in blackface," a political rival once called him.

Though Obama would later convince many black skeptics of his commitment to justice and equality, he made clear he would not be bound by their antagonism toward the white power structure.

"Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and toward black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing," he told an interviewer in 1995, before his political career had begun. "But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. . . . We've got communities to build."

Today, Obama is under attack from the other end of the spectrum, accused of tacitly endorsing the Afro-centrism and deeply critical views of America expressed by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. To those who know Obama and have followed the arc of his career, the charge makes little sense against a man they have long considered a beacon of a colorblind future.

But to critics, Obama's decision to associate himself for 20 years with a church that preaches black nationalism - an association that once helped establish his credibility in the black community - prompts serious questions about his patriotism, judgment, and allegiances."

Guest's note: a page later, the article says about Wright and his Christian brand of black nationalism:

"Wright was never a Pollyanna about race relations. He railed against white attitudes toward African-Americans and preached self-sufficiency to his black worshipers. Phrases like "God damn America," those who know Wright say, reflected not a fierce anti-Americanism but a deserved, if provocative, indictment of a country that had been hostile to blacks.

"This is what I would call the traditional black critique of America, that basically America is flawed on race," said Harwood McClerking, a specialist on race and politics at Ohio State University. "That's a contested premise."

Especially in the hot glare of a presidential race.

"Do such beliefs translate into a political agenda tailored to African-Americans?" Investor's Business Daily asked in an editorial early last year, when Obama, seeking to distance himself from Wright's views, disinvited Wright from giving the invocation at his campaign kickoff. "Would Obama, despite his agreeably race-neutral and nonthreatening public persona, govern and petition on behalf of one group and not necessarily for the greater good of the country?"

So, before everyone comes in and starts trying to equate Tavis Smiley with Rush Limbaugh, remember this--if "race" is the issue, and the conversation Obama supporters seem to feel we need to have at this juncture, this is what's is coming at you from the other way in the long, dark tunnel.