Years ago I interviewed a man who toured high schools, colleges and civic groups, presenting his one-man dramatizations on slavery in America. Mark Edwards, an African American and a Catholic, played each role himself.

He was a slave one moment, and then stepped aside to become the slave master, the overseer or abolitionist. Why not engage a troupe of players? I asked him.

Edwards replied that at one time he did engage other actors and actresses to play different parts. "But the audience gasped in horror or cheered along racial lines almost unconsciously," he explained. That's how wedded they were to seeing themselves and their experiences --- or fears --- in the unfolding drama.

Edwards observed that people can get so caught up in relating to characters from their own racial backgrounds that it becomes a struggle to see beyond themselves.

So Edwards returned to his one-man dramatizations, convinced that his audiences stood a better chance of looking at the inhumanity of slavery more objectively --- why it came about, who stood to gain or lose, its legacy even in the late-1970s when he was performing his dramatizations --- and what people could do together to extinguish its vestiges.

I find myself thinking a lot about Edwards' take on how people respond to others different from and like themselves.

I believe Edwards would see the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, as one big stage where men and women are talking issues but are judged primarily along lines of race and gender.

Recently a radio talk-show host said that his wife, when she heard ABC's Charles Gibson interviewing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, asked, "Have you ever heard him speak to a man like that?"

Political analysts who rarely ask if a white candidate is good for white America are now challenging blacks to scrutinize Sen. Barack Obama's voting record, to ask themselves: "Would a President Barack Obama be good for black America?"

They urge blacks in particular not to be swayed by their emotions and the heady coincidence of the first African American being named a major political party's candidate for the presidency of the United States.

I suspect Edwards would say that the gaze in the mirror at one of their own could be too mesmerizing for some.

But when we are mesmerized or complacent with the status quo, a jolt can snap us back into reality, help us see issues larger than ourselves and our special interests.

The U.S. received such a jolt from the current financial crisis that transcends concerns of race and gender.

Republicans and Democrats will blame each other for gargantuan losses affecting Wall Street and other global financial institutions. But self-interests have contributed to it too.

Quoting Cassius in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," one Washington lobbyist wrote this about the nation's financial woes: "'The fault ... is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'

"Near-trillion dollar failures involve the bad economic decisions of millions of people, including government officials, lobbyists, fund managers, and, yes, borrowers and investors. As Proverbs points out, 'The borrower is servant to the lender,' and our nation has seen far too much of living today on what has been borrowed from tomorrow."

Why are we living today on what has been borrowed from tomorrow? Why do we tend to trust one of our own more than one who is different? We could use objective help to seriously discern why we do what we do.

Perhaps a one-man dramatization?

Edwards wasn't the first to use this technique effectively, for the Lord is always speaking eloquently in Scripture about how his people are to live in community. His God-Man dramatizations, which his church interprets, can move us all from "just us" to justice.

Carole Norris Greene is a columnist with Catholic News Service.