Inauguration Day Benediction

As has been said so many times today, this was a historic day. We witnessed the inauguration of our country's first bi-racial president. Millions packed the national mall to attend the event. Words of inspiration were spoken in prayer, poetry, and prose. There was only one moment that left me a little put out. During the benediction, the African-American pastor asked that White would embrace right. I understand that he was eye-witness to the injustices suffered during the era of Jim Crow and that he fought the long, hard battle for civil rights. But I think that his joking comment that debased whites as wrong while at the same time elevating all other races did a disservice to the ceremony and to his otherwise well composed benediction.

If voting for a bi-racial candidate for president puts whites embracing right, then millions did so this year. There would be no President Obama without the votes of millions of these wrong-thinking whites. This point was omitted from his prayer. I admittedly did not vote for President Obama. My decision was base on principle not pigmentation. But I do feel a little bad for all those whites that did vote for him and are still considered wrong by this prominent black minister. What must they do in order to please him? Is he profiling them because they are white. Are they being unfairly stereotyped because some whites like me did not vote for President Obama? What did the pastor really mean? A word of advice to the reverend would be to leave comedy and racial slurs out of your prayers to a father who is no respecter of persons and should be approached in reverence.