I disagree with Manish’s assessment; I actually thought Obama gave a very good speech on Tuesday. I do see the limitations: the tone and delivery was much more restrained than Obama’s earlier big speeches, so it’s not likely to bring him a new wave of supporters where he could use them most (i.e., here in Pennsylvania). But a soft and dispassionate tone was probably essential, as his primary goal was to distance himself from the unrestrained, over-the-top anger of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

In contrast to Manish, I do feel that Obama did address the segments of American society who are not black or white, when he mentioned immigrants:

That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change.

But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race.

Their experience is the immigrant experience — 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. (link)

The rhetorical move here is intriguing — he starts by acknowledging the resentment of working- and middle-class whites (which is itself significant; it’s perhaps the first time I’ve seen a Democrat say anything like this). But in the final paragraph, he moves to include immigrants, and in some sense suggests that the resentment of whites might also overlap with the resentment of immigrants about things like affirmative action. (Certainly, I know many South Asians — and Asians, more generally — who are deeply opposed to Affirmative Action, so this rings true.)

A second reference to immigrants comes later in the speech:

But I have asserted a firm conviction — a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people — that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life.

But it also means binding our particular grievances — for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs — to the larger aspirations of all Americans, the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.

This time, the reference is more purely sentimental: he’s talking about our shared experience of striving and struggle. But his choice of examples here is really telling as it reveals who he’s trying to reach: middle-class whites and immigrants.

In short, while this is primarily a speech about relations between blacks and whites, Obama does inject a “third” position into the mix, which might refer to Latinos, Asians, or other immigrants.