Reply #13: I think he was saying that the fact Barack is not comfortable referring to his race shows

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

that the 1960s conflicts are NOT over. That race does still matter, and wishing it wasn't so doesn't accomplish much.

That said, I found that paragraph the oddest and least persuasive part of Hayden's piece:

Your problem, if I may say so out loud, and with all respect, is that the deepest rationale for your running for president is the one that you dare not mention very much, which is that you are an African-American with the possibility of becoming president. The quiet implication of your centrism is that all races can live beyond the present divisions, in the higher reality above the dualities. You may be right. You see the problems Hillary Clinton encounters every time she implies that she wants to shatter all those glass ceilings and empower a woman, a product of the feminist movement, to be president? Same problem. So here’s my question: how can you say let’s “turn the page” and leave all those Sixties’ quarrels behind us if we dare not talk freely in public places about a black man or a woman being president? Doesn’t that reveal that on some very deep level that we are not yet ready to “turn the page”?