Messenger Boy

George W. Bush’s new memoir Decision Points sold 775,000 copies within its first week on the market, almost reaching total sales of Bill Clinton’s My Life. But the book did not claim the honor that a few other politicians have managed to reach: the New York Times bestseller list.

Since the book was released in the first week of November 2010, Americans could not get away from comments flying about the former president’s decisions throughout his presidency and his sentiments expressed in his first interview, with Matt Lauer, on NBC—particularly, Mr. Bush’s still-raw wounds from when hip-hop rapper Kanye West stated on national television, about the president’s response to Hurricane Katrina, that “George W. Bush does not care about black people.” This comment, according to Mr. Bush, ranked as “the worst moment of his presidency.” Not the realization that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Not the several trillion dollar deficit. Not September 11, 2001.

The door to that back and forth blew open upon the publication of Decision Points, and since then, surprisingly, the two have, though not in person and instead through each of their preferred interviews behind safe boom mics, made headway to settle the matter. However, with race being one of the most sore and yet overlooked topics of national conversation in America; many have ideas about how to more forward progressively.

Hip-hop video blogger Jay Smooth on his website IllDoctrine.com shares his thought about how to discuss race and actually get somewhere in the conversation, or, as he puts it, “How to Tell Someone They Sound Racist.” Take a look:

Now, if we can just figure out a way to counter the tit-for-tat storm that will likely ensue upon publication of Sarah Palin’s latest book today, Nov. 23, America by Heart, in which she jabs at First Lady Michelle Obama about her 2008 remarks about race and patriotism, and criticizes her for attending the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for so many years.

Palin also digs at President Obama in a passage on racial inequality, saying that he “seems to believe” that “America is a racially unjust and unequal country.”

We’ll certainly hear more about Palin’s views as she takes to the road, on tour to promote her book. What more will be uncovered about our country’s high-voltage views about race and equality? Time and a flurry of indirect attacks will tell. Read more excerpts of America by Heart, in Geoffrey Dunn’s article for The Huffington Post.