ur loyalties are not trivial.  Barack Obama is right about his parents.  We do not choose our parents; and it is an unvarnished truth that insofar as our parents loved and cared for us, we accept them in spite of their faults.  Likewise for our grandparents.  So, of course, I expect Barack Obama to love his parents and grandparents even if regarding the matter of racism or gender equality, both his parents and grandparents miss the moral mark in important ways.  For it is possible to miss the mark in these ways and yet be quite some distance from being a vicious person. 

Still, Obama has some explaining to do. 

I begin with simple observation that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright hardly has a lock on Jesus.  So, insofar as Obama had an interest in worshipping Jesus, Mr. Barack Obama has always had a potpourri of churches from which to choose.  Thus, the fact that Obama continued to worship Jesus at the church pastored by Reverend Jeremiah Wright requires an explanation, given that Reverend Wright has been more than a little vituperative in his attitude towards whites. 

You see, Pastor Wright’s views about whites do not constitute a minor aspect of his thought.  Quite the contrary, Pastor Wright's views about whites have center stage in his thinking.  So a man who made a point of maintaining an associating with Wright, including having Wright as a major campaign advisor has much to explain. 

How seriously should we take Obama’s condemnation of Wright’s views when it would seem to be as clear as the night follows the day that this condemnation on Obama’s part would not have happened had there not been public pressure to do so.  And this is a fundamental point.

It is a fact that people change.  The late governor George Wallace stands as a marvelous case in point.  But moral change must come from the heart; otherwise, it does not count.  The change cannot be for the sake of public convenience.  Everything that we know about Wallace makes it clear that his transformation from a dyed-in-the-wool racist to a true friend of blacks was absolutely a genuine change. 

There is no evidence, by contrast, that Obama’s condemnation of Wright’s views and Obama’s distancing himself from Wright are occasioned by anything other than blatant political expediency. 

In 2007, Pastor Wright’s Trumpet Magazine gave Mr. Louis Farrakhan the Trumpet Award for epitomizing greatness.  Farrakhan is the man who referred to Jews as gutter people.  Needless to say, there is nothing on the face of this earth that is inclusive about that award.  And it is very difficult for to make sense of anyone remaining in a church where the pastor did such a thing if that person believed in racial inclusiveness—as Barack Obama claims he does. 

Here, it seems to me that the saying “What is good for the goose is good for the gander” is most applicable.  If a white belonged to a church where the pastor’s views and behavior parallels Pastor Wright’s, I would not be friends with that white person.  I would not trust that person in matters of race.  There are certain things that a person cannot do or say if the individual truly believes that all people are equal.  And with the exception of family members, there are certain associations that a person cannot have if the individual believes in equality for all.  Obama does not get a moral pass in this regard because he is black or have mixed race or whatever.

Now, I do not l want to trivialize the pain of racism.  But Mr. Barack Obama is no more entitled to go on and on and on and on about the pain of racism than I am.  The successes of his life surpasse those of the life of many individuals, be they black or white or whatever.  His life does not epitomize what it means to be a victim of racism any more than mine does.  As I have always maintained, I live a life that would be a veritable fantasy for many people, whatever their ethnic composition might.  I have certainly experienced racism.  Indeed, some of the most painful moments of racism in my life have been as a professor at Syracuse University, where way too many white liberals of my generation seem to think that they know better than I do what I should think and do and believe. 

At qutie some cost to myself, I have fought against the nonsense that my white liberal colleagues get to define me.  But I am able to fight this battle from a position of strength and security and success that many people in life of whatever ethnic composition do not have.  And it would be wrong of me not to be mindful of that truth.  The same holds for Obama, perhaps even more so.  Likewise for his wife—a Princeton and Harvard graduate. 

What is more, no one’s moral pain entitles that person to harm others and to ignore the moral decency that others unfailingly exhibit in their lives.  My moral pain does not; Obama’s moral pain does not.  Just as it is horrendously wrong for feminists to intone that all men are sexist (if only in their hearts), it is equally wrong for Pastor Wright to intone that all whites are racists.  And it is quite wrong for Barack Obama to have an allegiance to Wright, given that Wright holds such views.  And since it was only until yesterday that Pastor Wright had a key advisory role in Obama’s campaign organization for the President of the United States, there can be no doubt about Obama’s allegiance to Pastor Wright. 

They say that actions speak louder than words.  Barack Obama’s actions overshadow his words.  Like the chameleon who changes colors according to the environment in which the creature finds itself, Obama has now privileged inclusiveness in precisely the way that he should have done so from the very start.  That is, he should have distanced himself from Pastor Wright because it is quite possible to serve Jesus and have black pride in a church where the minister does not spew out the venom about whites that is characteristic of Pastor Wright’s views.  Indeed, isn’t going to church supposed to be about spiritual edification—and not about learning how to indulge and reinforce one’s anger and hostility towards this or that ethnic group? 

Christianity claims that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  In the spirit of George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, Wright and Obama have a re-intrepretation of that passage: All have sinned, but some (namely white people) are worse sinners than others.

There is simply no better measure of the true moral metal of a person than the kind of individuals whom the person is comfortable being around and whose ties the person voluntarily cultivates and forges.  By this measure, Barack Obama is simply not the man of moral inclusiveness that he would now like us to believe that he is.  To suppose otherwise is rather like supposing that a white person could regularly attend KKK meetings and voluntarily cultivate personal ties with members of the KKK without having any racist tendencies.  Only a fool would think that such a thing is a possible.  Similarly, only a fool would think that Barack Obama does not embrace an ideology that far is closer to Farrakhan’s than not.  Precisely what Obama is counting on is that there are lots of fools out there.  And, alas, he is quite right about that.