Tom Tryon of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune goes out on a limb and bravely talks about discussing race in America in his column, "If we are confined to corners, we can't build on racial progress".

Tom talks about demographics and census figures. One interesting thing Tom points out is that the "Census shows 81 percent of Americans as white, 13 percent as black and 4 percent as Asian. But the Census also shows that 14 percent of Americans identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino, regardless of race -- the fastest-growing group."

What Tom may have discovered is Hispanics self-identify as white. Hispanics don't identify themselves in terms of ethnicity but rather origin. They view themselves as part of the whole cloth of America.

What we and most Americans found troubling about the sermons of Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. was his emphasis on blackness, his Afrocentric church doctrine and anti-American rhetoric. Dr. Wright for over 35 years has been preaching segregation, hate and sedition to his congregation. He has been rewarded by his community, his state and the nation for doing so.

What is most troubling about the political speech of Senator Obama is his statement, "I can no more disown him [Dr. Wright] than I can disown the black community."

Many Americans see Dr. Wright, and Senator Obama's failure to disown him, promoting a belief system that says blacks must be "confined to a corner" in order to be viable. Being black trumps all else, including being American.

To have meaning in their lives blacks must hate "whitey" and "white America" and damn America according to Pastor Wright. Dr. Wright preaches the "we are owed" doctrine of black power.

What is more disturbing is the recent glowing support of Dr. Wright from Reverend John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ, Reverend Michael Pfleger of the Saint Sabina church of Chicago, Senator Obama, political pundits, the media and some leaders in the black community.

Dr. Wright preached racial segregation and sedition. The same segregation, racial slurs and hate speech that Tom rightly points out came from Southern Democrats such as former Governor and Democratic Presidential candidate George Wallace.

Recently we had a comment posted on this blog saying that there are two Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebrations in Newtown. One for "whitey" and one for the blacks. This is segregation of the most heinous sort on a day that is supposed to celebrate racial equality.

We fully agree with Tom when he ends his column with, "If we ignore our common challenges, if we fail to embrace our common beliefs, religious and secular, we will simply remain in the corners we define by race, afraid and unable to bridge our differences."

The operative words are "common beliefs". What beliefs we have in common defines us as American. History has shown that for a multi-ethnic nation to survive it must have a strong common belief system that trumps race.

Americans rightly are shocked, afraid and angry when they hear black separatist rants. The black community must denounce not only the rhetoric of Dr. Wright but the man himself and those of a similar ilk, who Senator Obama describes as being in a "time warp".

We agree with Tom, some in our community need to get out of their corner and meet the majority of us in the middle of the room.

According to Time magazine, "In a [1956] special session of the [Democratic controlled] Florida legislature, the state house of representatives passed four bills to circumvent a state supreme court ruling that the Florida school segregation laws are invalid. The bills would enable county boards of education to assign pupils and teachers to schools on the basis of intelligence, ability, and "cultural background.'' One representative objected that "some Negro pupils have higher IQs than some white pupils." Snapped a backer of the bill: "But who is going to give the tests?"

The Governor of Florida in 1956 was Democrat Thomas LeRoy Collins (pictured to the left). Democratic Governor Collins publicly condemned the U. S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

As a side note you should also know about The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (known as the Johns Committee) established by the Democratic Florida Legislature in 1956, during the era of the Second Red Scare and the Lavender Scare.

The Florida committee undertook a wide-ranging investigation of potentially subversive activities by academics, civil rights groups, and suspected communist organizations, and also attempted to eliminate homosexuals from state government and public education.

The Johns Committee was named after Democratic Governor of Florida Charley Eugene Johns.

In the Sarasota Herald-Tribune article by Carol E. Lee, "Reconciliation of racist past stirs in Captital", there is a lot Carol does not tell you about the role of Democrats and the racist past of Florida.

For example, not mentioned in the article is that the all white Florida state legislature of 1956 was also all Democrat and that the Democrats and their KKK "friends" had eliminated Republicans from elected office in Florida by the early 1900s.

The article mentions that there were 63,000 slaves in Florida before the Civil War, but fails to mention that the slave owners were Democrats and fails to mention that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, that it won the Civil War against the pro-slavery Democratic Party and that the Republican Party passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution that ended slavery, provided the vote for black men, and outlawed racial discrimination. Almost every Democrat voting NO.

Of the almost 3,000 people lynched by the KKK: 2,000 were black, 1,000 were white, and almost all were Republicans.

Really, it ought to be the white Democrats who apologize to all Republicans and all black residents of Florida for the many historic crimes of the white Democratic Party. The rehabilitation of the Democratic Party begins with it acknowledging its extensive racist history.