In the aftermath of Barack Obama's speech about race, Clinton supporter Lanny Davis wrote a short essay about the speech. After generously praising Obama for the "brilliance" of the speech, and reaffirming his great respect for Obama, Davis went on to pose several questions which he felt, even after the speech, still clouded the Obama candidacy. One of Davis' questions was the following:

If a white minister preached sermons to his congregation and had used the "N" word and used rhetoric and words similar to members of the KKK, would you support a Democratic presidential candidate who decided to continue to be a member of that congregation?

The question posed by Davis is an interesting one, but not for the reasons that he assumes. Transposing Jeremiah Wright's race to white in order to assess the objectionableness of his words, is in fact not a legitimate form of analysis. In situations where a black person's behavior is in question, it is typical for whites to pose the ultimate gotcha question, "what if a white person had done that!?" Let me explain why that analysis has little value:

Let's do a thought experiment: Suppose a white college student goes to his state university and tells the dean that he would like to start a "White Student Union," a club devoted to the cultural affairs of white students. The dean tells the enterprising student, "No, such a club would not be acceptable." Not to be deterred, the student writes a letter to the student newspaper, denouncing the dean's refusal, and states that he is a victim of discrimination. After all, the outraged student argues, "there's been a Black Student Union at this school for 20 years, and nobody has complained about that! I'm the victim here."

In lodging this complaint, the student has fallen prey to the widely held fallacy of racial symmetry. This view, held by many, but rarely examined, holds that all behaviors by whites and blacks are morally equivalent and should be judged through the same prism. Unfortunately, often this view often makes no sense.

The answer to our aggrieved student is, of course there's a Black Student Union! At our hypothetical State U., 90% of the facilities, resources and organizations cater--quite understandably--to the dominant white culture of the campus. When the African-American students set up their club, it was not a racist initiative; rather it was a support group that recognized that these students were a severe minority on campus, and benefited from bonding together to maximize their shared culture and experience.

By contrast, the proposed "White Student Union" would be a redundancy. Who needs a club specially devoted to white students' needs? That's what the school was set up for in the first place!

Just so that my point is crystal clear, let's look at a second example. Suppose a white businessman, a creative and enterprising fellow, decides to start a new cable channel. In seeking capital for his venture, he sends out hundreds of letters, telling prospective investors that his channel will be called, "White Entertainment Television." When the responses come back, universally telling him, "uh, no thanks, all my funds are already committed right now," our businessman is surprised. "Geez," the discouraged businessman wonders, "how could Robert Johnson do so well in setting up Black Entertainment Television, and I can't raise a nickel for my white channel?" The reason is simple, the two businesses have no equivalence either as business ventures, or as moral activities. When Robert Johnson founded BET in 1979, blacks were a grossly under-served population in the entertainment industry. By contrast, a new network devoted to whites, would almost certainly be an exercise in in-your-face bigotry, and would serve no marketplace niche. So once again, these two behaviors, by people of two races, are superficially similar, but are completely asymmetrical in terms of their moral significance.

In other words, given the vastly different histories of blacks and whites, simply switching the race of the actor for purposes of analysis can be perilous and even foolhardy, because one cannot presume a moral symmetry between the two sets of actions. Let's now go back to the example posed by Lanny Davis:

The first part of Davis' question--what if a white minister used the N word--makes no sense whatsoever. Reverend Wright wasn't using the N word as a term of abuse. Rather, he was pointing out in his sermon that unlike Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has never been called the N word. Now one can argue whether or not that fact necessarily gives Barack Obama any deeper understanding of race relations. That's a separate issue. But the use of the N word by Wright is quite distinct from that of a white minister using it in an abusive context. The comparison is absurd on its face.

The second part of Davis' question, "if a white minister....used rhetoric and words similar to the KKK," also seems to be a bit confused. While I myself found Wright's words to be needlessly inflammatory, he wasn't talking in the manner of a KKK member. Rather, he was likening the U.S. government to the KKK. While one might conclude that both forms of rhetoric are objectionable, they are hardly the same: If a white minister uses the language of the KKK, he is typically preaching hatred and violence toward America's minorities; what Reverend Wright was doing, by contrast, was scolding the U.S. government for not adequately protecting America's minorities. Again, when scrutinized closely, Davis' question is comparing apples and oranges.

Let me make it clear that I am no fan of Jeremiah Wright's sermons. Beyond the hyperbolic content, the belligerent tone alone would put me off. That said, it is still necessary to understand that the level of anger in Trinity United Church of Christ and in many other black churches has to be understood in terms of the historical context of the congregants, whose economic status, level of health care, and school systems would be seen as catastrophic if they were characteristic of the white community. One of the things I like about Barack Obama is that unlike Lanny Davis, he understands this fact. Here is Obama, talking about his church and minister:

Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

Here's Obama on Reverend Wright:

He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

In answer to Lanny Davis, there is no comparable white minister out there to whom we can compare Jeremiah Wright. Please rethink your analysis.