Barack Obama's race speech was highly anticipated, in part, because it offered a peek inside the intellect of a man who has been accused of being heavy on rhetorical flourish and light on intellectual substance. Unwittingly, Obama also provided a glimpse into the American soul in regards to race relations and, unfortunately, the speech revealed two Americas that are speaking past each other.

Obama actually gave two speeches in Philadelphia in that one delivery. One speech was racial, the other political. Obama's supporters heard the superb race speech. His detractors heard the deficient political speech. The difference in what these two audiences took away from that Philadelphia address makes it impossible to realize any real racial progress in the near future.

However, after the election, Obama's speech could be a crucial starting point for improving American race relations. While the Illinois senator has built a political career and enjoyed commercial success peddling hope, it was Obama's explanation of racial anger that ultimately could prove most beneficial.

He explained why asking African-Americans, particularly older blacks, just to "get over it" with regard to past racial injustice isn't going to work. The hurt and humiliation suffered decades ago remain real to many people until the day they die.

Is their anger rational? In most cases, it's not. But neither was the bitterness harbored against the Japanese by some World War II veterans I've known who fought in the Pacific. This anger was often manifested in a refusal to buy Japanese cars, even though the Japanese workers who built them were born long after the war's end. I regarded these vets as stuck in the past, but that dismissal was before I heard their accounts of the atrocities they faced, witnessed and endured when fighting the Japanese.

However irrational I found their racial acrimony, I did come to understand it. That's an important lesson Obama brought out in Philadelphia. While one doesn't have to accept the basis of another's racial bias, to move beyond it requires an understanding of its roots.

Of course, racial animus can also become a self-limiting trap, a point Obama squarely confronted. He urged the African-American community not to be defined by its oppressive past, but to build a better future using the bedrock conservative values of self-sufficiency and determination. He couldn't have been clearer when he extolled, "And it means taking full responsibility for our own lives -- by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."

Rush Limbaugh couldn't have said it any better.

Yet many conservative analysts have chosen to fixate on Obama's refusal to excommunicate his former pastor from his life. For them, Obama's harsh condemnation of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's anti-American rants isn't enough. Obama made his case for sticking by Wright, whom he regards as a family member, and he'll be judged for it.

But for those quick to condemn Obama for not kicking Rev. Wright to the curb, I ask them to remember the words of another religious leader -- the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, who in damning homosexuality always reminded his followers to hate the sin, but love the sinner. I think Falwell would be pleased Obama has chosen not to abandon his former minister.

Whether Obama has enough political experience to become president is still a matter of debate, but his life experience makes him uniquely qualified to bridge America's remaining racial divide. He's a member of a historically oppressed race, yet perhaps no other person has benefited more from the racial redresses this nation has made. Obama's education, wealth and political opportunity are testament to the progress that has been made but that has become stalled.

Whether president or not, in 2009 Obama has the opportunity to use his family history and experience to lift American race relations out of the quagmire. It's an opportunity I hope he doesn't pass up, because it's the type of meaningful change only he can bring about.