There are a lot of folks of all races who would like to see Barack Obama become president — but to be honest, some of those with the greatest historic interest are African-Americans.

I’d also think that many black folks are well aware — as everyone is — that so far, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. could be a big reason Obama may not become president.

Given this, I have a question to those in the black community — or anyone else who might have influence on Reverend Wright.

Why doesn’t someone tell him to go away?

Why doesn’t he himself realize he should?

He knows Obama has a shot at a historic milestone. He also knows that his words may derail that from happening.

Yes, plenty of others are trying to derail Obama, too, primarily Hillary Clinton at the moment. But you can’t blame her. She’s his opponent. It’s the job of opponents to knock the other guy out.

That’s not the job of your pastor. It’s especially not so if, as a pastor, your vision is focused on lifting up the black community. Few things could lift it more than the inauguration of an African-American president.

And yet Wright continues to get in the way of that.

The first time he did so was inadvertent. Whatever you think about Wright’s now famous sound bites damning America — and I hope you think they were pretty bad — he certainly didn’t say them to trip up Obama’s campaign.

But last week, something different happened. He chose on his own to give his first interview on the subject.

There were a lot of things he could have said in this interview. For example, “I know in my heart my words were no reflection on how Barack Obama sees this nation.” And kept himself to that tone.

He could have added that Obama’s speech on race was the kind of healing call that inspired him as a pastor and American.

And yes, he did say he was taken out of context. But in his interview with Bill Moyers, Wright also said this about Obama’s speech:

“He’s a politician, I’m a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. So that what happened in Philadelphia, where he had to respond to the sound bites, he responded as a politician.”

Predictably, opponents are saying Wright implied Obama was insincere and just talking as a pol.

Wright’s mere appearance has only stirred up those sound bites. And he’ll do it again tomorrow when he speaks to the National Press Club.

When the Reverend Wright videos first aired, I thought Obama showed calm and even courage in avoiding the easy response of disowning him instantly. Instead, his Philadelphia speech talked about race from both a black and white perspective. A key section of the speech, forgotten by many now, is worth repeating. Obama said:

“Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. As far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.”

Politically, it would be trickier for a white candidate to say that, which is part of Obama’s ability to bridge a divide. And again, I thought it took guts to say he couldn’t disown Wright any more than he could his own white grandmother, because both were captive to old prejudices.

But it’s one thing to give Wright a bye for controversial past words that don’t reflect most of his ministry.

It’s another when Wright, who is smart enough to know his every syllable will be scrutinized, has now used words that imply Obama just says what he has to as a pol.

However you feel about Obama, it would be nice to get back to how he and Hillary Clinton stand on the issues. Wright is pushing that aside.

Someone needs to tell him to go away.

mpatinkin@projo.com