[media-credit name=’NATALIE WEINBERGER/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Syndicated Miami Herald columnist and 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts spoke to an overflowing crowd of University of Wisconsin students and faculty at the Pyle Center Wednesday.

Renowned for his witty and insightful takes on a myriad of cultural and sociological issues, Pitts addressed the crowd on race, post-Katrina New Orleans and the media in his lecture titled "Where Do We Go From Here? Race, Reconciliation and Other Tattered Dreams."

During his speech, Pitts described the indefinable aspects of race and reminded audience members that things have changed since the days of Jim Crow Laws and segregation, but not enough.

"Where race is concerned, we live in the center of a Gordian knot of contradictions and confusions, resentments and retrenchments; the roads fork and sometimes it seems you need the Wisdom of Solomon to determine which way to turn," he said. "Will it be afro-centricity or diversity, desegregation or re-segregation … white pride, political correctness, and does anybody, anywhere, still have a dream?"

Pitts said the country is at a "crossroads of race, culture and recrimination." He said a 10-year-old white child he met while doing a "man-on-the-street" interview in Montgomery, Ala., best described the situation.

"He summed it all up as follows, quote: 'No fair, you have to [do] this because you're this color and you have to do that because you're that color, no fair,'" he said. "The unassailable simplicity of his wisdom makes us … praise children for their ability to cut through the clutter and get to what really matters."

Pitts said the problem with many adults of all races is they tend to make defensive assumptions when confronted with racial issues.

"The issue here is two sets of assumptions — one black, one white," he said. "And if the black assumption is too frequently that we have not moved forward, the white assumption is too often the opposite — that we've moved a lot further than we actually have."

Regardless of either assumption, Pitts said people must move forward to improve race issues in America.

"Where do we go from here? Simple: we move forward into an understanding that diversity is strength, not weakness; blessing, not burden. We go forward into a realization that the work we started stands unfinished. We go forward into a conviction that if some of us are not free, then none of us really are," he said. "We go forward and we try to make sense of this tangle, try to find simplicity that lies at the center of the Gordian knot 'no fair.' … I heard that once from a little boy I met. We go forward because we owe that much to him."

After Pitt's speech, both students and faculty said they were impressed with his ability to remain objective when analyzing racially charged aspects of American culture.

"I thought he was great," UW junior Matt McCulloh said. "I like what Leonard Pitts had to say about the whole race [issue]. … I like his views. He's got a good, well-balanced view on both sides of the spectrum here, and I really enjoyed his speech."

Journalism professor Jack Mitchell also said he was impressed with Pitts' ability to balance both sides of the issue.

"I thought his treatment of race was very, very interesting," Mitchell said. "It was very fair and balanced, if you want to use the journalistic term, but that's unusual because it was very critical of both sides and I think you kind of have to be that way if you want to make any progress."