Restarting a National Conversation About Race

(March 18) -- Two years ago tonight, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, seeking to undo the political damage from incendiary comments by his former pastor, stepped onto a stage at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center and delivered a speech that could well have saved his candidacy.

"Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now," Obama said then, arguing that the brouhaha over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright reflected "the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect."

But the conversation Obama had hoped to start didn't catch on, drowned out by African-Americans' euphoria over Obama's election and less historically freighted issues such as wars in Iraq in Afghanistan and the economic meltdown that revealed yet another divide: the one between the classes.

Tonight, a handful of scholars and activists hope to restart the conversation from the same stage Obama used two years ago, in a 90-minute sold-out program to be webcast live and, organizers said, taped for later broadcast on C-SPAN. Prefaced by remarks by Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund, the panel will dive into a wide range of race-related issues, many to be gleaned from submissions over Facebook and Twitter, and live through the webcast.

"The audience is anybody who's interested in these issues," said Charles A. Williams III, a former radio talk-show host and current director of the Center for the Prevention of School-Aged Violence at Drexel University, who will moderate the discussion by the panel he helped select. "We wanted people who had been thinking about it and studying these issues for a while. ... We felt that would allow us to have more of a handle on just making sure we have a very productive and constructive dialogue and not just the name calling and yelling that goes on."

The hurdle, Williams said, is fostering a discussion that steers around traditional landmines. That concern influenced the decision on whom to invite on the panel. They settled on Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil rights icon; television journalist and author Gwen Ifill, who wrote a book about race and politics; and award-winning academic Thomas J. Sugru, who has written extensively on urban policy and poverty issues.

Williams said the stature of the panelists, and their overlapping areas of expertise, will give the program a foundation of solid information presented in a non-inflammatory manner.

"What's the benefit when you have a conversation that goes nowhere with people all emotional and calling each other names?" Williams said in an interview with AOL News. "Nothing constructive happens."

But that doesn't mean the panel will avoid tough issues.

"I think there's no question, from the African-American perspective, that things are different," Lomax said. "I think the question remains, is the difference that it's no longer just race but maybe more economics? I don't have a prescription, but I think it's troubling that being black and poor, or being Latino and poor, can be a pretty punishing experience."

Lomax said he plans to prime the pump with opening comments examining the education gap between white students and black and Latino students -- a gap that was widening before the economic crisis led to deep cuts in state and local funding for education. The gap gains additional significance for the future of minority students as the national economy becomes based more on knowledge and education.

"Is it racial? Is it intentional? Or is it residual?" Lomax said. "Is this the legacy of some previous generation's policies and practices? ... Is it still the extraordinary barrier that it once was to creating a collective American identity?"

Lomax believes those issues need to climb back up the list of national conversation topics. "I don't like the irony" that after electing the nation's first African-American president, "it's still hard to talk about race," he said.

"From the African-American point of view, we don't want to over-emphasize something and have that somehow come back and have it bite the president," Lomax said. "We don't want to make it all about race."