Boo tells an interesting story about an encounter he had after the speech:

I had a sad experience yesterday that, while anecdotal, gives saliency to the point. I had just left the Constitution Center after watching Obama's uplifting speech. I was walking through The Gallery, which is an urban shopping mall on Market Street. I decided to sit down on a bench and see if I could get a wireless signal. An elderly white woman sat down next to me and was silent for a little while. Then she said, "That's where my tax dollars go."

I looked up at her, not knowing what she was referring to, and asked, "excuse me?".

She nodded at a group of young early-20's black people (some with a baby carriage) walking by, and repeated herself.

The people she was referring to were nicely dressed and appeared to be enjoying themselves as they window shopped in the mall. I think I just mumbled something like "Mmmn" and returned my attention to my laptop. Then the elderly woman said, "Do you know that Hillary is coming here today?"

I nodded, "Yes. I just came from seeing Obama."

She frowned at this news and then said, "I'm very excited to see Hillary. She knows how to deal with [she swept her hand around to indicate the mall crowd] this."

I excused myself.

Race is going to be an issue in this race, and we can either worry about it or we can go to work to make sure tolerance and enlightenment prevail. Obama's speech accomplished a lot, but he is no miracle worker. Let's not forget that.

This confuses me. Why did you "excuse yourself," Boo? I mean, if we shouldn't forget that Obama alone can't overcome the racism of millions, isn't what you did passing up a golden opportunity? Here's what I would've said:

"How can you be sure they receive gov't aid? That's pretty racist of you. And anyway, more white people receive welfare than Black or other minority groups, and even so, spending on aid to poor people is not even a drop in the bucket compared to what we've spent on the war or worthless programs like Star Wars. The difference between them is billions vs. trillions. That's an order of magnitude, and if you care about waste, look there."

I'm sure it's occured to all of us that Obama's run is "historical" and presents us with wonderful opportunities to make racism and race a conversation topic like never before.

But Dood- ya gotta speak out, yo? I'm a Black, gay woman, and I've learned: Silence = Death. Mumbling and walking away are NOT effective techniques for social change.

I like Boo a lot. We disagree on candidates this year, but I still read his work and respect his efforts a lot. However, I think that this anecdote of his is really, really telling of the progressive community and many Obama supporters. You love him, you believe he's "transformational," but the only people whom you will yell at and get all "here's my detailed argument, bitch!" with are...progressives who support another candidate. Racists get a free pass.

That's just not right. It's certainly not going to help combat racism.