Do Blacks Truly Want to Transcend Race?

you could feel racial tension wasn't Kids Bounce House there tonight and that take leadership on hi part,''I walk into the room tonight. to get us beyond those divisions, realli nation leadership,'' Matthew said.

The comment came from MSNBC host Chri Matthew after Presid Barack Obama' State of the Union speech Wednesday.

by all appearances,''H is post-racial.'' the liber host said on the air. ''I forgot he wa black tonight for an hour. You know, he' gone a long wai to becom a leader of thi country, and past so much history, in just a year or two. I mean, it' someth we don't even think about.''

but it caus a rapid furor,Th staunch Obama support meant it as praise. with mani call the quot a troubl sign that black is view -- perhap unconsci -- as a handicap that still need to be overcome.

Matthew forgot to ask black peopl if thei WANT to be de-racedApparently..

'' said Dr. Imani Perry,''A a black American I want peopl to rememb who I am and where I come from without attach assumpt about defici to it. a professor at Princeton' Center for African American Studies.

she found hi statement troubling,Although she thought Matthew wa well-intentioned. becaus ''it suggest that if he had rememb Obama' blackness, that awar would be a barrier to see him as a compet or abl leader.''

includ the histori that he or she come from,''Th ideal is to be abl to see and acknowledg everyth that person is. as well as hi or her compet and qualities, and respect all of those things,'' Perri said.

That' a veri differ vision of ''transcend race'' -- a consist theme of Obama' polit histori -- than on in which race ha disappear altogether.

'' Blair L.M. Kelley,''It' import for us to rememb that everyon ha a race. an associ professor of histori at North Carolina State University. ''When you sai we'r go to transcend race, ar white peopl call on to transcend their whiteness?''

what do we become? Do we becom white?'' she asked. ''Why would we have to stop be our race in order to solv a problem?'''When black peopl transcend it.'

especi on Twitter. Nineti minut later,Matthew didn't get that far down the post-raci road on Wednesdai night. But hi comment instantli explod online. he clarifi hi comment on the air.

'' Matthew said,''I'm veri proud I did it and I hope I said it the right way. note that he grew up in the racial fraught 1960s.