AURELIUS - Often invoking the historic nature of the 2008 presidential election, a group of panelists recognized the progress the United States has made when it comes to racism while discussing its scope inside the Auburn community during a forum designed to combat racism.

A group of about 40 people assembled at the Cayuga-Onondaga Board of Cooperative Educational Services Regional Education Center Monday evening for the second installment of the “Moving Past Racism” forum, listening to an eight-member panel from a cross-section of the central New York community discuss racism, its entrenchment in local spheres and how to end it.

During a two-hour session, sponsored by the Auburn/Cayuga NAACP, Cayuga Community College, Change International and the New York Institute of Dance and Education, panelists and audience members recounted their own experiences of racism while answering questions on the subject.

At nearly every opportunity, panelists and audience members cited the upcoming presidential election, where Barack Obama could be the first black president, where Sarah Palin could be the first woman vice president, as indicative of the progress this country has made.

“There are people in this community who are riding this transcendent wave and enjoying every minute of it,” Auburn Teachers Association President and panelist Sally Jo Widmer said, “not because of the bad times, but because this is truly one of the good times. We are opening our country, our hearts, our souls.

“It's as exciting a time as I can remember in my life,” she said.

But at the same time, people had questions about racism in Auburn, in its schools and in its businesses. Lonnie Love, who sits on the Auburn/Cayuga NAACP executive board and a founder of Change International, asked what the Auburn Enlarged City School District is tangibly doing to address minority students who are struggling with academics.

Demetrius Murphy, manager of the Auburn First Niagara Bank branch on Grant Avenue, spoke about the difficulties he encountered as a black man in Auburn's corporate world.

Audience members and community members through an online forum offered by The Citizen questioned the panel on various subjects. One such question was about why it is politically correct to call black people “African American.”

Facilitator Sean McLeod responded by saying that black people, whose ancestry traces back to slavery lost a connection to their homeland, lost their heritage.

There was a need, he said, to have a sense of belonging and so black people began to identify their lineage to the continent of Africa.

Panelist and retired teacher from the Auburn Enlarged City School District, Bill Tenity, said that labeling is “polarizing,” and while such names may have been needed in the past, this is one nation and we're Americans.

“I think we need to stop that and start thinking of ourselves as one nation and one people, otherwise the problem will never be gone,” he said.