you can't move on if you don't understand where you are coming from

So the speech Barack Obama made earlier this week where he spoke candidly about race in America has gotten a lot of attention. On Wednesday night Jon Stewart showed a series of clips from cable talk shows where a seemingly endless stream of white pundits asked the same question: Did white people get their feelings hurt?

This is what it looks like to me: There are white people in America who are happy only when black people, like Barack Obama, act as if they have no color. They are unhappy when it's pointed out to them that whites and blacks in the US come out of two distinctly different experiences. Black (and brown) people are supposed to act as if they have no color, and those white people are content when they themselves can continue to act as if they have no color. 'Color' here refers to social position, as it is handed down from history. That's what status quo looks like: a total disconnect from history.

So to cater to white peoples' feelings, people of color should avoid talking about race or racial tension. If they do, the most important question for some will be whether white people got their feelings hurt.

We live in the shadow of slavery and colonialism. Whose feelings should we be protecting again? And why?