Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in a speech given amid an increasing focus on race in the Democratic primary battle and concerns about his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, did not dismiss his former pastor but instead sought to mobilize Americans to address deep-seated racial tensions.

“We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change,” the senator stated. “That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time.’ ”

In the past week, conservative pundits have criticized Obama for not speaking out earlier against Wright, who once said “God damn[s] America” for treating its citizens as “less than human” and who once blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on previous actions by the United States.

Obama, speaking in Philadelphia, Pa., again condemned Wright’s statements, calling them wrong, divisive and representative of a distorted view. But he also said that Wright and others who held racial stereotypes could not be dismissed.

“He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years,” Obama said. “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

“These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love,” Obama stated.