As many of your know, Senator Obama gave a major campaign speech last week on the subject of race in the U.S.
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Public Radio International's The World program hosted a panel of international journalists based in Washington to discuss how their publics’ view race in America.
It is an interesting segment: listen.
The journalists include Ewen MacAskill with Britain's Guardian newspaper, Constance Ikokwu with the Nigerian newspaper ThisDay, and Hisham Melhem of the Arabic satellite news channel, al-Arabiya.
Melhem said that because, unfortunately, racism is alive and well in the Arab world, this issue is of great interest. Therefore, he reported that Obama's speech was widely-covered in the Middle East. He said Obama's “bold” speech had the effect of “elevate[ing] the discussion to a higher plane.”
Ikokwu hoped that Americans learn something from Obama's life and that the discussion of race would become more open in the U.S. from now on.
McAskill spoke about a stereotype in the UK that Americans are more prejudiced than they are–which he felt not to be true. While he felt Obama's speech was strong, and “grown-up” speech, he questioned whether it would resonate with Americans across the U.S.