The elephant in the room

Late last week before the more inflammatory sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright surfaced, the retiring pastor of Barack Obama's home church was being attacked for having the temerity to suggest that white people have an advantage over blacks in the United States.
I was struck by the absurdity of the outcry over Rev. Wright stating the obvious. We have apparently become so obsessed with political correctness that we have to express outrage and shock when someone publicly states an obvious, albeit uncomfortable, fact of political life.
The same kind of silly PC-driven logic obtained earlier in the week when former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro opined that Obama would not be a strong contender for his party's nomination for president were he white. Her remark was informed by her belief that she would never have been a VP nominee if she had been a man. And she is almost certainly right on both counts.
The fact - like it or not - is that race and gender are still factors in American politics. The media acknowledges this every time they break down the candidates' constituencies along gender and racial lines.
Wright unquestionably crossed the line when he started jabbering about the U.S.K.K.K. of A. and "God damn America," but in asserting that blacks are at a political and social advantage in America, all he did was name the elephant in the room. We all wish it were not so, and I like to think it is much less so today than when I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s. We're moving toward a fairer and more just society, but we're not quite there yet and we do everyone a disservice by pretending that we're reached that goal.