Barack Obama attacks US state of 'racial stalemate'

Barack Obama waged the biggest gamble of his presidential campaign yesterday by confronting the corrosive issue of race in an emotionally charged speech that could decide the outcome of his bid for the White House.

In the course of a speech that ran to nearly 5,000 words, Mr Obama sought initially to stem the political damage caused by the “incendiary language� of his former pastor.

But he also confronted America’s legacy of racial division and white resentment, urging the country to overcome “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years�.

His speech in Philadelphia addressed directly the five-day “firestorm� over the Rev Jeremiah Wright’s views, as well as an emerging polarisation between black and white voters in recent Democratic primaries.

“We have a choice in this country: we can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism,� he told his audience. “Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say: ‘not this time’.�

He acknowledged that discussion of race in the presidential campaign had taken a particularly divisive turn in recent days, with videos of Mr Wright — who was pastor to Mr Obama and his family for 20 years before retiring last month — repeatedly broadcast on TV news channels. These show him denouncing a corrupt, white-dominated and racist “US-KKK-of A�. In one sermon, he said the 9/11 attacks were an example of chickens “coming home to roost� and, in another, that black people should sing not “God bless America� but “God damn America�.

Mr Obama repeated his previous condemnations of such views yesterday, while admitting for the first time that he had been present at the Chicago church where Mr Wright made “remarks that could be considered controversial� — and with which he strongly disagreed.

But Mr Obama refused to renounce entirely a pastor whose sermons have threatened to tarnish his image as a unifying politician. Instead, he tried to explain — if not justify — Mr Wright’s comments by putting them into the context of his own multi-ethnic heritage and that of a country that has “never really worked through� the legacy of slavery and segregation.

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,� he said. “I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother — a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street.�

Hillary Clinton has remained silent on the issue, but some Republicans have seized on Mr Wright as ammunition against the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. One strategist said the pastor’s comments formed part of a “negative pattern� that included Mr Obama’s decision to stop wearing an American flag lapel pin, his association with radical groups in Chicago and his wife’s recent comment that she was proud of her country “for the first time�.

Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing talk radio host, said that Mr Obama’s association with Mr Wright had “de-masked� a candidate who would no longer make “whites feel good� or be able to transcend race.

Mr Obama delivered his address against a backdrop of eight American flags and began by quoting the opening line from the US Constitution — “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union� — which was agreed close to where he was speaking in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Opinion polls suggest that Mrs Clinton enjoys a substantial lead among working-class white voters in the state, which holds a crucial Democratic primary on April 22.

“Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now,� Mr Obama said. The powerful sense of grievance felt by Mr Wright was, he said, representative of “other African-Americans of his generation� and could not be wished away. “The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.�

America had been stuck in a “racial stalemate� with sections of the white community feeling resentment over school bussing and affirmative action programmes to help ethnic minorities — or “when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighbourhoods are somehow prejudiced�.

Mr Obama said that Mr Wright’s mistake was to believe “our society was static� and that progress was impossible. Building a “more perfect union� required African-Americans to embrace “the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past� — and white Americans “to realise that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams�.

But he claimed that the success of his own campaign this year in winning voters from all ethnic and social groups had proved “that America can change�.

He added: “And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation: the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.�

Tom Baldwin in Washington