Those who have been enjoying the debate stirred by Trevor Phillips's article on Barack Obama in our current issue (on this blog and elsewhere) may be interested to read his response to some of the criticisms that have been levelled at him, printed as a letter in the Independent today:
Sir: I was a little surprised to see the front page of The Independent (28 February) and my somewhat apocalyptic claim that "Obama will do nothing for black Americans". Strangely, I don't recall saying that.
My article in Prospect, on which The Independent's coverage was based, was not a personal attack on Mr Obama or whether he would make a great president. The actual focus of my ire is those who are attempting to use Mr Obama's arrival as signalling the dawn of a post-racial Nirvana in America; those who would use his success to say "job well done" and ignore the hard work of tackling that country's deep divisions.
A high-profile black figure who gets the whole world talking about race, politics and the mix of the two should never be dismissed in the off-hand way yesterday's coverage suggested I had. Mr Obama may indeed be a worthy American president. What he won't be is a solution to that country's racial divide.
Trevor Phillips Chair, Equality and Human Rights Commission, London SE1
