These past few months of our American political life have been full of a great deal of drama and surprise. I was at a meeting on the Tuesday evening of the Presidential election and would get home until 9:30. I fully expected to spend the next several hours plastered to the television screen waiting to see what would be the outcome. I turned on the radio on the way home and was astonished to hear the announcement that Obama had carried Pennsylvania. What? I checked my watch. It was only 9:15. And by the time I got home and turned on the television and looked at the map of the states I practically fell down. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were telling me. None of the states that some had wondered would be close—weren’t. What’s up with that?

I was stunned. Three things stand out for me on that night. First, Jessie Jackson’s tear streamed face as he stood silently in the vast crowd in Chicago. He too could not really really believe it. Second, John McCain’s concession speech—undeniably the best concession speech I have ever heard. Gracious, poignant, wise—every bit as good as the man who delivered it. This was American politics at its finest and should serve as a model for everyone—this is how you effect a transition in power. The third thing: Barach Obama’s acceptance speech.

“Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story, of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to. It is that promise that's always set this country apart, that through hard work and sacrifice each of us can pursue our individual dreams, but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams, as well. That's why I stand here tonight. Because for 232 years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women—students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors—found the courage to keep it alive.”

Yes, racism took a real body blow that night. But was the blow lethal? Some have announced that we have now entered a “post-racist” era in America. Is that true? Ask yourself, if the American electorate as a whole was an automobile, was racism the driver, riding shotgun, in the backseat, or outside of the car, left by the roadside?

No matter one’s party affiliation, there has been near universal acclimation over the fact that the electorate of the United States has chosen an African American, even one with a Islamic sounding name. In just two days he will be inaugurated. But when the hoopla has died down there will be a few salient points to remember. The presidential campaign of 2008 had some very distinctive atmospherics. Obama’s campaign raised $742 million dollars while the McCain campaign raised a little more than half that amount, $367 million. The Obama campaign was the best organized presidential campaign I have ever seen, the McCain campaign ranked right up there with the Michael Dukakis campaign for mis-steps and mistakes, blunders and bromides. The Obama campaign had a historically unpopular President to campaign against while the McCain campaign could not distance himself from the President’s reputation. And, of course, the economy, McCain’s perceived weakness, had gone into a frightening tailspin of historic proportions during President Bush’s watch. About the only thing that John McCain didn’t have to face was a hurricane, reminding voters of Katrina. Oh, wait, he had to endure that as well when Ike closed down the first day of the Republican convention.

During the final weeks of the campaign several commentators, reflecting on the polling numbers, were puzzled by a curious phenomenon. Great dis-satisfaction with the prospects of a continuing Republican administration were matched by a low-level unease with the idea of Barack Obama serving as the President. It has rarely been asked; what if Barach Obama had been white and named Brandon O Hara—would the polls have pointed to anything other than an even more lopsided result? I don’t think we will ever have the answer to that question but I think we already know the answer.

So while it is absolutely important to celebrate the historic election of a black man to the presidency, it is also important to remember that while racism did take a major body blow on that November night, the hit was not lethal. Perhaps racism is no longer the driver, but I suspect racism is still a passenger in the car. We have as a nation accomplished something extremely remarkable. And yet, it may also be the case that if we can be this remarkable, then we just might be able to get the unwanted passenger out of the vehicle as well. That’s the problem with doing something marvelous, people’s expectations and hopes rise—as well they should, as well they must. We are not yet in a post-racist society. But we had better get busy on finding out how we can be a post-racist society.

African Americans living in the United States are quite clear about the necessity of getting beyond racism, to creating a post racist society. European Americans do not have quite the same sense of urgency. That inequality alone is something we should not forget. I sometimes wish that I knew some unusually potent sorcerer’s charm or spell, not simply to dissolve the injustice of racism per se, but a charm or spell that would allow those who are of the socially advantaged class, European Americans, to see the harm they do to themselves and their children by continuing the patterns of thinking that are the foundation of racism. I think it is important to understand this danger because our unwanted passenger will not get out of the car by itself and it will not get out of the car, particularly when we think it is out of the car even if, in reality, it’s just scrunched down below our line of sight. And it will certainly not get out of the car because we think it is the decent thing to do. No, this particular passenger will not be removed from our ride until we come to know—it has to go, it cannot stay, it is a grave danger to us. It will only get out of the car when we firmly know it is not just the right thing to do but is the necessary thing we have to do. There are so many potent and long lived reasons for racism’s presence in our lives that our suspicion about the difficulty of such a project is extremely accurate. That level of difficulty alone can be discouraging, dispiriting enough to lead us to just throw up our hands in exasperation, “What can be done?”

A great deal. But it will require some cunning on our parts. It will require wisdom on our parts. It will require a motivation that is derived from the clear realization that if we were really smart we’d recognize that overcoming racism is life saving for us all. We will look at these in reverse order, motivation, wisdom, and cunning for they build upon each other. No motivation, no wisdom, no wisdom, no cunning, no cunning, we still got that passenger in our social vehicle.

Motivation is in some respects the easiest, and the most difficult part. It is easy because the facts are quite clear, and difficult because we are greatly accustomed to paying absolutely no attention to what those facts mean. So consider this: there are currently 2.3 million citizens of the United States of America in prison or jail. Compare that with China—which has 1.5 million citizens incarcerated—but then they have four times our population. No industrialized country comes even close to our rate of incarceration.

This fact comes with an annual cost, just for the incarceration alone, of 55 billion. Add in the cost of police and court systems, probation, lost wages and taxes on the part of those in prison, etc. and you can see that the cost to our society is enormous. I mention these statistics because it seems likely to me that “Jim Crow” laws in the United States have been replaced with incarceration. If nothing else the likelihood of an African American male being incarcerated is 10 times the rate of a Caucasian male. We cannot sustain this. The costs of imprisoning our population have increased 127%, adjusted for inflation, over the past two decades.

Some will say, well, do the crime, do the time. Sure. But half of the prison population now consists of individuals who have been convicted for petty possession of controlled substances. And we all know that controlled substances are only used by African Americans in distressed poor neighborhoods.

Perhaps the point is debatable, but I am trying to put some hard numbers on the table to get us to realize that some of what we do in our society cannot be sustained. We are creating a vast underclass of people who’s capacity for making something positive out of their lives is routinely undermined. And when you add to the habits of our justice system the habits of our educational system and our economic system, it doesn’t take an accounting wizard to see that what we are doing will ultimately lead to disaster. The end point is Gaza. So should we just wall off some sections of our cities? And what are we going to do about those pesky rockets? Okay, let’s invade and see how that fixes things. More gates, more guards, more walls more police. This cannot be sustained. Understanding the nature of our danger out to provide some additional motivation to move with greater vigor toward a post racist society.

Our circumstance in this country is not nearly that dire—yet. But if we do not get smarter about this than I don’t see how we can avoid the “Gaza” outcome. Thankfully some of our traditions in this country do provide us with a few better alternatives. The first tradition is that we are an inherently practical people. We will put up with a fair amount of what seems like patent nonsense—but only for a while. Let us all hope and pray for that day when our various legislatures will finally disentangle that lethal combination of political cowardice and self-righteousness known as the war on drugs and in a moment of stunning clarity recognize that these laws are killing us. And while we support a narcotics underground in our own country, because in this case there truly is “free trade,” that underground ends up killing a tremendous number of citizens of Mexico and Latin America. Juarez is a wasteland—and a lot of it is our fault.

In addition to our practicality we are also blessed with an astonishing sentence which is included in the founding document of this country. That sentence claims that “all men are endowed by their creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Now as many of us know, when the gentlemen writing that sentence parsed their words they believed that the category “men” meant, “gentlemen,” rather like themselves. African slaves were not considered to be “men” and women were not considered to be “men.” But over time slaves would be freed and women would win the right to vote. I have wondered what our society would be like if the founding fathers had omitted the qualifier and instead written only that “men” were so endowed. But that little qualifier “all” ending up changing everything. The sense of “all,” that no one could be excluded, has been fashioned with the shedding of our blood, with massive protest and continuing unrest and it continues to lure us on. The power of that phrase with that little word “all” is astonishing. You know how you can tell? Police officers in Bellaire have, as we have heard and surely is a phenomenon unique to Bellaire (hah!), stop African Americans with greater regularity and with more deadly results than they do European Americans. And yet the police officers do not believe that they are doing anything like racial profiling. They are certain of it. Their certitude rests on their belief that they live in the land where “all” are endowed. They know they are not supposed to use racial profiling, so they believe they don’t.

And yet they do. And the truth be told, we all do. Those who think they are better at this than the Bellaire police are fooling themselves. And yet, we, at least the people in this room, do not want to be suspicious or wary of people with different racial characteristics. We Universalists really and truly believe in that little word “all.” So what can we do?

This is the part where cunning is absolutely necessary. We need to be able to recognize our own racist thoughts. As long as we pretend they are not there we are helpless to do anything about them. Having racist thoughts does not necessarily make you a bad person except in the sense that everyone is a bad person on this score. And, it is important to note that such racist thoughts, the normal wariness regarding people who look different than you, are not really the things which have to be changed. Trying to change them alone will change nothing because such racist thoughts are not what’s driving the behavior. Really?

Well, here is the process by which racism derives is seeming invincibility and resistance to change. Racist thoughts are nothing but rationalizations added on, are created to explain wariness which occurs on the neurological, the pre-conscious, level. That’s right, it’s not that we consciously intend to be racist, but that our brain is very picky about whom it will trust and it makes snap judgments based on very slight information such as something like like skin color. What we really need to understand is that our brains have a default switch for a great many things. There are other less troubling examples. The color blue, for instance, induces calmness. Red, danger. We are not even aware of these sorts of reactions because, again, they are not products of consciousness. So on a normal day our brain detects differences in facial characteristics before we are aware it is doing so.

What does this neurological reality mean? There is a sequence to our racial awareness. Racial reaction occurs on a neurological, pre-conscious, level. Several milliseconds later that neurological reaction creates a conscious racial thought. We are not aware of the first part of the sequence, only the second. What this sequence really tells us is that efforts to address racism by changing only the secondary rationalization is like putting on a saddle when the horse has already left the neurological barn. Too late. The only real way to change racist thinking involves changing the brain’s pre-conscious neurological racist reaction. And astonishingly enough, this can be done.

It requires only two things. First, we must remain aware of the sequence of neurological events and acknowledge the source of the problem. All that we do when we change our conscious racist thinking is fool ourselves into thinking that we have solved the problem. Second it is also necessary that we remain in the company of people who are also are aware of the sequence, and are very clear about the fact, that as amazing as the brain may be, when it comes to racism it’s dumb. It’s reaction is based on faulty information.

This being attentive to, acknowledging this neurological awareness, is only possible because we can detect the feeling of anxiety that accompanies our perception of racial differences. And when we are aware of the anxiety, we can then learn to identify that anxiety, not as a feeling that must inevitably create the subsequent racist thought, but as a feeling that is a “stupid brain” trick which need not be embraced. No one, of course, likes to feel anxious. It is the feeling of anxiety that has typically been resolved with racist thought. But because the stakes are so high, we must learn to accept the fact of feeling anxious and not give into its insistent yammering.

Adopting a different response to the anxiety cannot be done by oneself but will be successful only in the company of others. The underlying neurological reaction occurs as part of the social network processing. Change can only take place in the presence of others as the brain performs its social networking functioning. And over time the underlying neurological network that produces racism can be over written—by a new network of consciousness. We need the presence of others who are engaged in the same project to help us live with the discomfort while we slowly create a far better social network processing response. All of this requires cunning precisely because we will find that we are doing the opposite of what our brains want us to do. It will feel “un-natural” so we must continue to believe deeply that there is nothing necessary about racism. What we must do is insist that our brain’s behave and become accustomed to what we believe is our better “nature.”

Let there be no doubt that this work within the context of this community is an intensely spiritual work. In doing this work we are participating in the real re-birth of who you and I can be. In doing this work we move beyond chastising and arguing to actually doing something that will change our minds and hearts. In doing this work we can get racism out of the car, we can be America again, we can be that land that finds the way ahead, the land that feasts upon hope, the land that believes we are not helpless pawns but citizens of a glorious dream, “ordinary men and women, students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors” finding the courage to keep alive our universalist dream, that all really are endowed with the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We can make America be that great green land it was always meant to be, for everyone, for all. Let us set out on this journey to that land, singing hymn #1018, Come and Go with Me to That Land!