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But the reality is, we are very much in a racialized america. this incident with ms. sherrod clearly illustrates that. and unfortunately, the public is going to have to lead a conversation that the president cannot be close to. any time president obama touches race, van jones, jeremiah wright, ms. sherrod or skip gates and beer summits. he gets burned. he's got to stay far away from that. because if he doesn't, the right will hijack him and he will be apologizing to everybody that is associated with the discussion. >> we have to run. i'm so sorry. such an interesting discussion. i wish we coul...

Stronger than it was at that time. that was when obama became identified as a radical black man which he certainly is not. so ultimately the henry louis gates case put the president in a cage where he literally became almost petrified to deal with the issue of race in public. when you saw more substantive issues occur like the shooting of oscar grant, the shooting of sean bell, the shooting of ianna jones, the president was afraid to touch those things. i think a conversation on race must occur in the united states but the president is not necessarily the person positioned to best lead that co...

Would perceive it as something negative. she thinks that's not necessarily the case but she's talking about perception. what do you make of that? >> i think there are two pieces here. two pieces. number one, the problem with what happened with the henry louis gates matter and the beer summit last summer was that what was a symptom of a larger problem of race and encounters of african-americans with the police was treated for political expediency as a personal misunderstanding between two individuals that the president then brought together for beer and nuts. what was lost was the opportunity t...

Did he apologize to you? >> well, you know, he didn't say "i'm sorry," in those words. i really didn't want to hear the president of the united states say "i'm sorry" to shirley sherrod. i felt he was saying that in his talk just by simply calling me. i felt it was, in a way, saying "i'm sorry." because he didn't have to do it. >> shirley, this is the second time that race has crossed the administration's path in a big way. the other was in cambridge with skip gates and that police officer. both times this administration has badly fumbled the issue. what does that say to you about this adminis...

Obama to be the person to help kind of navigate us through these shoals. after that race speech toward a more perfect union in philadelphia, think that really settled it for many americans. so the think the obama administration should actually be more confident about having the president be able to speak exclis italy to the issue of race. >> boyce, when you talk about confidence, the henry gates controversy was not -- you really can't blame the conservatives for that and the president said when asked at a news conference the cambridge police acted stupidly, then he said before knowing the full...