Post-inauguration talk about a “post-racial” America — and recent news items that have provoked racial tensions — have prompted Rosetta Thurman to explore on her self-titled blog the need for the nonprofit world to be more candid on the subject of race.

Pointing to the New York Post‘s controversial cartoon depicting President Obama as a dead monkey, and Attorney General Eric Holder’s declaration that Americans are “a nation of cowards” when it comes to race, Ms. Thurman says she has found the commentary on these events disappointing.

“The idea that we are moving ‘past race’ in any way because we have a black President has only served to bring to light the reality of just how marginalized people of color are in this country, and even in our very own nonprofit sector,” she writes. “I’ll be interested to see how many nonprofit conferences this year take diversity off the agenda, now that California foundations have agreed to invest more in ‘minorities.’”

Ms. Thurman has observed that discussions about diversity at nonprofit conferences are often sparsely attended: “People don’t come for many different reasons, but mainly because they are afraid. So we need to do a better job of creating the kind of safe space to have conversations about race in a productive way.”

Although charities and grant makers have many tasks ahead of them, race and diversity should still play a role in “every decision we make, or don’t make, in our work,” Ms. Thurman writes. The nonprofit world’s leadership, she notes, is overwhelmingly white.

“In order to change that, we need to be able to talk about it. Without being dismissive or demeaning,” she argues. “This is our opportunity to show that we as a nonprofit sector can do better than mainstream America on this issue.”

Ms. Thurman will participate in a Chronicle online discussion about how young nonprofit workers can move their careers forward despite the recession, on Tuesday, March 3 at 12 noon U.S. Eastern standard time.