Watch this. Then come back.
Okay, so here's what Lou Dobbs, Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan and way too many white Americans don't get: when Senator Obama urged a discussion about race in his Philadelphia Address, that DID NOT mean that white people have permission to say stupid racist things (like "cotton pickin' politicians") and expect to get away with it under the umbrella of this race discussion.
The senator DID NOT tell the nation's white people: go ahead and say dumb shit -- it's okay as long as we're talking about it. Wrong! Senator Obama's message was that we talk about why -- WHY white people say stupid racist things and WHY black people are angry about it (and slavery and Jim Crow and all the rest of it).
I've seen this misinterpretation on the very serious cable news day after day. I've seen it in comment threads from both left blogs and right blogs. Senator Obama's speech wasn't an invitation for white people to make racist remarks. Sorry.