Obama's speech was about racial history, bare-knuckled primary politics, and religious rhetoric, whereas a Tyler Perry review most often alights on the various the implications of black dudes wearing dresses. (Less so this time around with the Angela Basset-fronted "Browns.")

But the Race Speech and a careful Perry review are in their own ways about the perils and challenges presented by white eavesdropping on black conversations. With the wide distribution of Wright's sermons, some white audiences previously unexposed to his form of black rhetoric found themselves at turns shocked, confused and worried, which is to say, in need of a handy primer.

And after having avoided exactly this kind of work throughout his campaign, Barack Obama – likely Democratic presidential nominee, change agent, and once in a lifetime political phenomenon - found himself forced by political expediency into that oldest of roles for black folks in the public eye: reluctant native informant and translator.

His response wasn't exactly a Tyler Perry review, but it was close: There was a time and a place for Rev. Wright's comments and I'd like to explain those times and places to you. I don't live in either anymore, but I also won't completely trash them, because they're a part of who I am and at various points they have given me comfort.

As the hedge-like walls around various closed black networks whether Wright's or Perry's - become increasingly open to white scrutiny, these debates will likely become less about black privacy, and start to focus instead on competing assessments of the specific doings once hidden behind those walls.

Just as the firestorm over Wright immediately moved from the question of what Obama personally heard and when, to whether or not Wright's underlying points had any larger historical merit, the longer term debate about cultural artifacts like Meet the Browns will inevitably shift.

In ten or twenty years, in a world where (maybe) black people win the occasional presidency and Oscar, our appreciation for Perry's broad exercises in comedic community service could easily wane. Assessing long term cultural merit is a mug's game, and, personally, I'd argue there's more than a little artistry involved in being able to simultaneously cheer a room full of hypothetical black every-people and critics from the New York Times.

But there's also a sense in which the nostalgic, proprietary moral aura of the chitlin circuit is what keeps Tyler Perry from being just another popular but middling black comedian; a Wayans Brother, for example, whose executive producer happens to be his lord and savior Jesus Christ.

In a world of Richard Pryors, Dave Chappelles, and even Eddie Murphys, the thing that keeps a Tyler Perry in the conversation is his admirable and resolute dedication to remaining a certain kind of "ours." This, as arguably more talented black performers venture out into the world and try their hand at frying different and bigger fish/intestines.

We love Perry now, but we'd do well to remember that we also used to love another Perry - Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry. He was the greatest black comedic actor of his day, but outside of the memories of a few aficionados and critical subversives, that earlier Perry's stage name is now generally among the worst slurs you can throw at a black performer or professional: Stepin' Fetchit.

Gary Dauphin is a Los Angeles-based writer and interactive community builder.

Also on TheRoot.com:

Andre C. Willis on Tyler Perry's conservative crusade and Obama's covert pulpitry. Keith Josef Adkins sends an open letter to Tyler Perry. Gary Dauphin on why he does not likeStuffWhitePeopleLike.

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