1) when I speak of our first "Black President," I use the term as it is used virtually universally to apply to anyone with a black parent. I understand that in former times, in Louisiana in particular, much was made of "how black" a person was depending on ancestry. I use the term as it is commonly used; a scholar of language and usage, I simply appropriate a term that, in the end, is r****t, but virtually universal in its application.
2) Also a student of history--REALLY a student of history, I am conscious that we pass things along--as a Christian evolutionist, I believe God had the early mammal mamas teach stuff to their little mammal children stuff that comes on down. I grew up in the 40s as r****t as anybody because my (Victorian-era) parents were. Our country was. On the other side of 8 Mile Road, in Detroit, the African-American parents were passing on from their (s***e) grandparents their low self-esteem, their need for violence to change the status quo, the lack of education, opportunity and capital, a desperation about finances, housing and upward mobility, their "different" speech patterns, a sex life shaped by selling and buying of parts of s***e families, and so on. Am I guilty of that? No? Can "they" change? I have no idea. Did the White "race" in the US shape the Black "race" into what they are--I do not see how we can avoid saying and admitting that. Any indiifference on our part--in my (Christian) opinion--continues the attitude of r****m that I grew up with. I believe God wants us to act, and not be slothful.

A two-way dialogue? White people (like me) have been saying EVERYTHING for several hundred years--whether it is the "colored" signs, the selective news, the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive S***e law, the one-sided reporting for centuries, in which you do not talk about the death of a loving mother who is black, etc. The efforts by our first Black President to say his side is considered a "lecture"? I find it incredible! It is like a teacher who has bullied a fat, r****ded and "colored" kid for years arguing that he is "sassing back" when he asks the teacher to stop it.