We in America are in desperate need of a "family" discussion on race. Over the past couple of weeks, racial tensions in America have escalated steeply due to various comments made by supporters of Clinton, Obama and McCain.

Limbaugh, a supporter of McCain, laughed at the idea of an Obama/Clinton Presidential ticket, saying "you've got a woman and a black for the first time ever on the Democrat ticket. Hehe. They don't have a prayer."

Geraldine Ferraro, a long time Clinton supporter, accused Obama of Black male privilege when she made the statement that "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,…And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position."

Then there is the firestorm over inflammatory sermons preached by Rev. Wright, Obama's long time pastor and spiritual mentor, in which he condemns America for its ill treatment of people of color both here in America and abroad.

In a sermon right after 9/11, Rev. Wright states that "America's chickens are coming home to roost".

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards."

In a more recent sermon he accuses the government of putting AIDS and drugs in the Black community, building prisons, then passing three strikes and you're out laws to put them in those prisons. "…and they want us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people…God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

While Limbaugh and Ferraro were reprimanded by many for their comments, it seems that their comments have become dim in comparison to Wright's comments which have been called divisive, racist, hateful and unpatriotic. And it is here, where I feel that we as an American family need to begin our discussion on race.

One of the things that we, through the study of psychology and family systems, know about children is that most children under a certain age have an idealistic view of their parents. Their love for their parents is unconditional. They love mommy and daddy no matter what. In their eyes, mommy and daddy can do no wrong. Another interesting truth is that children in families with 2, or 3 or 5 or 7 siblings, though raised in the same home, by the same parents, will all have a different family experience and thus a different perspective of themselves and their place in that family.

As children grow up, some of their idealistic views about their parent's infallibility fall away. They begin to see that mommy and daddy are human, and as humans, they make mistakes. In worst case scenarios, children grow up to find their parents are cruel, unloving and abusive.

Even in families where abuse is the norm, all members of the family will not experience this abuse or experience it to the same degree. Take the example of a father who sexually abused his daughter, but prized his son. If you were to ask the daughter about her experience growing up, her response would not be as positive as her brothers. And when she speaks ill of her father, her brother may even get angry with her.

"Daddy was good to us!" he may tell her.

"How dare you speak of our loving father that way? How dare you betray our family's name?"

What I find most disturbing about this, is that the victim of such abuse, who despite their pain probably loves their parents anyway, is usually guilted into silence, lest they make "the family" look bad.

Now, take a moment and zoom out to a family which is made of billions of siblings, all born to this nation we call America. Like the family above, Daddy America and Mother Liberty has not loved all of their children equally. America is known for abusing and misusing his women and children while at the same time showing favor to his sons. Liberty is known for ignoring her children of color and turning a blind eye to America's brutality towards them; while at the same time bestowing wealth and freedom to her paler kids.

It is my heartfelt belief that Rev. Wright is neither right nor racist, just wounded.

While Rev. Wright's rants may be unpatriotic to some, we need to remember that Rev. Wright (as do many older African-Americans) had a very different experience in the American family than many of our White sisters and brothers. Many of America's Black children no longer idolize "Mommy" and "Daddy" as the land of the free, because that was not their experience. And yes, some of America's Black children have a big problem asking God to Bless the America that beat them into free labor, raped their sisters and hung their brothers.

While Rev. Wrights accusation of daddy America purposefully infecting his Black children with HIV may seem like a paranoid conspiracy theory, we need to remember the Tuskegee experiment in which daddy America used our black brothers as lab rats by injecting them with Syphilis for 40 years between 1932 and 1972 (Rev. Wright was alive to witness this). We need to remember that mother liberty turned her back when our White brother J. Marion Sims (who is called the father of modern day gynecology and has an American statue in his honor), perfected his medical practice by performing experimental surgeries on our Black (slave) sisters against their will and without the courtesy of anesthesia.

I know it's hard for our White sisters and brothers because this is not the mommy and daddy that they know. Like the prized son, their privilege impedes their perspective. And their fear of implied guilt and shame prevents them from acknowledging the truth (in some ways making them victims as well).

It's a deceptively more complex matter than our fast food media cares to digest.

But despite the dysfunctions of our American family, many of us African-Americans have found a way to love our country anyway. We walk a fine line between loving daddy America, without idolizing him. Many of us still believe in America's potential to truly be the father of freedom and equality. And we serve this country in various capacities working towards that end.

If the American family really desires to heal itself and become the nation it proclaims itself to be, we must first start with the truth. However painful and shameful that may be. We must all acknowledge that no one person or group of children is responsible for all our family's problems. Our Black brothers, while victims of racism, have been perpetrators of sexism. Our White sisters, while victims of sexism, have been perpetrators of class-ism. Our Black sisters, while victims of both racism and sexism, have been guilty of hetero-sexism.

Change will come when we as Americans, have the courage to look things in the face and know them for what they are. Only then will our American ideals of freedom and fairness become a reality.