DURHAM - Many Americans, led by the news media, appear to have discovered African-Americans like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the first time. Many in the media have covered Wright as if he were some alien whose extreme rants threaten our way of life and, more disturbingly, as if anybody who has associated with him also were a threat. This is mystifying.

I doubt that there is an African-American anywhere in the country who has not heard the kind of offensive things that Wright has said about America, and worse. A few of the people who say these things may even believe them.

On the other hand, I am not aware that Wright in any way has acted upon the foul things he has said, or has tried to recruit others to act on them. Such offensive things are said for many reasons: out of anger, bitterness, ignorance and, often, simply to motivate people to be self-reliant.

The real question, however, is why is Rev. Wright is relevant to whether Barack Obama should be president.

Does the fact that Obama continued to be a member of Wright's church or initially refused to disavow Wright suggest in any way that Obama personally subscribes to the offensive things Wright has said? Does it mean Obama is not patriotic, or that he is a divisive racist?

We should judge Obama on his own record and words, not on the words of his minister.

Then why is Hillary Clinton using the Wright controversy to run against Obama? The answer, of course, is for the same reason that former President George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton to win the presidency in 1988: it may be politically expedient to do so.

Does Clinton really think that Obama is unpatriotic or racist or divisive? If so, she should say that directly and let him defend himself against the charge. But we all know that is not her personal belief; Wright is just another loaded code word or phrase, like "welfare queen." Clinton is using him to divide; to gain political advantage among white Democrats, even at the expense of offending or turning off many African-Americans, one of the Democratic Party's most loyal blocs of voters.

Clinton's husband did the same thing in 1993, when he unceremoniously dumped Lani Guinier after nominating her to be assistant attorney general for civil rights. Guinier was attacked by right-wing Republicans as a "quota queen" because of some things she had written about voting rights that were intended to move us beyond racial politics and force coalition-building among voters based on shared interests, not race.

Presidents usually don't know many of the people they nominate for sub-Cabinet government positions; in this case, however, Bill Clinton knew Lani Guinier very well. They were classmates at Yale Law School. He and Hillary attended Guinier's small wedding on Martha's Vineyard. He personally knew that Guinier was not a divisive or racist person; to the contrary, the very fact that they were friends gave lie to the charge. But despite that, solely for reasons of political expedience, Clinton withdrew Guinier's nomination without even giving her an opportunity to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend herself.

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WE HAVE A UNIQUE AND UNEXPECTED OPPORTUNITY THIS YEAR to move the country forward in a way it has not moved in my lifetime. Early in this campaign season, Barack Obama inspired many cynics, young people and disaffected voters in both parties to believe that we could unite as a country; that we could emerge from the rut of things that divide us to protect, defend and build upon the larger values we all share.

But such a shift is a threat to politicians whose careers depend upon dividing people in order to gain or retain power. Hillary Clinton is only the latest such politician, but she surely is one.

Rev. Wright likely is not a bad person, despite the bad things he has said about America; by his actions, as opposed to his words, he apparently has accomplished much good in Chicago. In other words, there is a difference between the sin and the sinner.

More important, however, nothing that Wright has said has anything to do with whether Obama should be president. The fact that Clinton has so aggressively exploited Wright in her campaign is only a reflection of her unfitness to be a president who unites us.

Even if she were nominated by the Democrats and elected president, her personal triumph would have been at the cost of four more years of political and likely racial divisiveness. That seems too high a price to pay, for the Democrats or the country.

(James E. Coleman Jr. is a professor at Duke University's law school.)