I’d seen the clips from the speech — the white grandmother story, and the denunciation of the extreme reviews of the Obama’s former pastor — but not the whole thing.  So thanks to the magic of ‘the tubes’, I settled in to watch Senator Obama’s entire speech on race in Philadelphia a day after it took place. 

At first I was disappointed.  No fiery rhetoric, no soaring paeans to hope, just measured phrases and quiet, thoughtful words.

But as the speech progressed, I became more and more mesmerized.  Here’s why.  What Senator Obama delivered in Philadelphia was the first grown-up speech on race relations I’ve heard since Martin Luther King, Jr. was preaching (and I was only a little kid then). 

Obama didn’t pull any verbal punches.  He spoke openly of black bitterness and white resentment.  He talked about the "most segregated hour" in America, the hour on Sunday morning when blacks go to black churches and whites go to white churches.  And he explained to the whites in the audience why black churches witness a lot of shouting and indeed ranting some Sunday mornings — and how that might seem strange to whites used to more decorous behavior in the pulpit and the pews. 

Most powerfully, he said we have a chance to work on the real problems we face in this country — education, health care, the Iraq war, global warming — or we can make excuses and talk again for another election cycle about how some group or other is taking jobs and opportunities from another group and what some campaign person said in an unguarded moment to some reporter. 

Senator Obama talked to the American people as if they were adults.  He showed that he is something special:  a black man who is a post-racial candidate ready to work on the real issues that America faces.  The question is, are we ready to act like adults with him?