To whom, or what, do the Obama children owe their privileged upbringing? Hold on, I’ll answer that: the drive, motivation, and efforts of Barack and Michelle, no more, no less.

There is no one who writes for this blog (ahem, me) or who reads it (ahem, you) who has worked harder or written more eloquently for the oppressed than Hitchens, I would wager. Don’t misinterpret what he is saying. He is saying that the election of Obama is the effect of the racial progress we have made, not the cause of it.

In other words, too many are celebrating Obama as the deliverer, rather than the delivered…

I think conservatives, in their more inspired moments, have made valuable contributions to ideas about racial *politics*. A politics of resentment and, as you say, punishment is basically useless. It heals nothing. Which is why we need more creative solutions (and things like, as I mentioned, SES-based affirmative action). I think the first step to creating those solutions is recognizing that problems persist and that everyone needs to pitch in without trying to assess who was responsible for what. Trying to pin blame is obviously not the way to solve things.

All that said, I think a lot of us are trying to focus on obvious positives. A black guy just got elected President and a whole lot of people are positively elated about what that means for America. But I think you’ll note that it’s folks like Christopher Hitchens who seem to think being excited about the racial progress this represents makes us bad people.

“You can’t honestly believe that the average white person in this country *doesn’t* start…”

That’s what we call a Freudian slip!