Keep Hope Alive

"There's nothing new about this kind of self-examination, but in the past we've conducted it mainly in private, in barbershops and beauty parlors, and churches. We've bristled when whites in power like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, joined in the critique of, for example, our soaring rate of out-of-wedlock births. We've moaned about the negative consequences of washing dirty laundry in public. But such a self-protective mindset no longer makes sense because Obama is one of us, who has taken part in our private handwringing about the self-inflicted wounds that bedevil segments of the black community. He hasn't said anything most of us haven't heard or said at the dinner table. But now, because Obama is who he is, the whole world is listening in to the conversation.
"The attention makes us uncomfortable and disoriented. So does the prospect that one of us might soon be in charge of trying to fix this mess instead of simply complaining about it."

Jack White in The Root considers Jesse Jackson, Sr.'s recent remarks about Barack Obama.

And in The New York Times, Charles M. Blow backs up Obama.