Barack Obama delivered a very artful speech today in Philadelphia, called "A More Perfect Union." Here is the operative paragraph of his address:

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

I think Rev. Wright's "mistake" goes much further than being stuck in the past, and I think most people will agree with me. What Wright is really stuck in is the radical "black theology" that came out of the late 60s and early 70s as articulated by theologians such as Prof. James H. Cone now at Union Theological Seminary. (Cone is one of Obama's and Wright's chief defenders.)

Black theology begins with the assumption that "whites" are an "oppressor" people and must be "overthrown." In other words, the "white race" is the enemy, and that is how Rev. Wright speaks about caucasians.

Black theology has been a staple of the curriculum at mainline seminaries for over thirty years, and it has been the daily bread at many African-American churches around the nation. The Obama candidacy has brought this reality suddenly to light.

I don't like talking about this kind of thing, because it sounds like something that crawls out from under a rock. When Michele Obama said that she has for the first time felt pride about the United States this was the voice of the black theology she, her husband, and her children have been hearing for many years at their home church in Chicago.

Obama's speech is beautifully written, but it is essentially spin, an avoidance of the central issue as posed by black theology: Is the white race the oppressor, and should it be addressed as an oppressor and treated as one?