Issues of race still with us

For a nation that prays for a colorblind society, we've got a long way to go.

All too many issues today remain tainted by race. And for those who remember the promise of the 1960s, the issue of race remains as evident today as it has been in the past.

The incident of the Harvard professor and the police arrest has one again focused our national attention on race. And our assessment of this isolated incident is clearly drawn along racial lines.

The professor was insulted that a lowly police officer did not know who he was and didn't realize "who you are messing with." His first reaction was drawn along racial lines. Despite evidence that has surfaced since the incident, the professor's first assumption was that his questioning and subsequent arrest was a case of racial profiling.

But we have to understand that the professor in question lives his life in a world of black and white. As a professor of African-American studies, his entire life is devoted to the class warfare and documented instances of racial abuse, racial profiling and real or perceived injustices against blacks.

So why are we surprised that his first reaction is to play the race card?

But this time the noted professor picked the wrong target. The arresting officer came into this "battle" with some pretty impressive credentials of his own. Racial profiling was not at work in this case.

This isolated incident would have been a brouhaha around the halls of Harvard had our president not decided to wax eloquently on the subject. When given the chance to bring clarity to the issue, the president sided along racial lines without sufficient facts to back up his assumption.

Presidents should know better.

We will never have a true dialogue on race in this country because the dividing lines are so clearly drawn and the differences too clearly distinct. In the end we will suffer because of this missing dialogue.

I am unable to honestly put myself into the shoes of an African-American male. Nor can that same male put himself into my position, with my background and my experiences. So when such discussions surface -- as they will -- we all fall back on our experiences and our perspective.

Rarely is either side all right or all wrong.

The Harvard incident was about a pompous professor who used his lifetime of experiences to see something that wasn't there. And the incident was compounded by a president who used his life experiences to take sides.

In this case, the president leveled his gun before a national audience and made a sophomoric mistake: Ready! Fire! Aim!