Obama Is The New Black

Barely had Obama finished his Philly speech on race when pundits began anointing it as an important watershed event, an oration destined to wind up some day in American history textbooks. While it's problematic to peer too far forward into the future with much accuracy, like countless others, I too was moved by the force of his words and mesmerized by his incantatory speaking style.

Contrary to Hillary's constant harrumpphing, words do matter. And especially the kind that attempt to peel back the layers of mistrust and apprehension that affect race relations in this country.

Obama clearly transcends, symbolizes, and straddles the black versus white color divide. His ethnic pedigree is both Huck Finn and the runaway slave Jim floating down the Mississippi of race in America.

But because he failed to completely separate himself from the underlying message of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's past jeremiads and fulminations, Obama knowingly ran the risk of being permanently associated with the messenger. By not making a 100 percent break with the pastor, Obama's presidential aspirations could still inevitably be put to pasture.

Obama's speech nonetheless was a deft high-wire act that earned its share of supporters and detractors in the blogosphere. Some wanted him to say more on the topic of race, others less. Some felt it was too late in the game. Others thought it only gave additional ammo to the Hillary camp, and subsequently to the GOP when its attack squads feel it's time to begin swiftboating Obama.

Yet one thing was certain. Obama didn't duck the vexing question of race like Romney did with his Mormon background by concealing it under the religious right's big tent of faith. Many saw through the transparency of Romney's hollow rhetoric that conflated faith with his own opportunistic sense of political manifest destiny.

There was nothing muddy, obfuscatory, or poll-tested in Obama's speech. It comes as no surprise why he had been selected editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review. The senator from Illinois is blessed with rare intellectual gifts that continue to flower and bring hope to others.

He is a profile in courage. (By the way, it has always been rumored that Ted Sorenson ghostwrote JFK's book of the same name, and yes, he's the same Sorenson who endorsed Obama.)

The presidential race will be about race once the gender issue is settled among Democrats, and Hillary is forced to decamp to the sidelines, kicking and screaming and crying foul all along the way ("What about Michigan's delegates? What about Florida? I won Ohio!" )

While Jesse Jackson played off the fears and anger of his multi-hued rainbow coaltion when he ran for president, Barack Obama preaches to a much different and more inclusive choir. He emphasizes repair, understanding, forgiveness, and moving forward together while not forgetting our past and how we got to where we are now. He delineates rather than alienates.

When Bill Clinton dismissively lumped together both men after Obama's big victory in South Carolina's Democratic primary, the former president forever lost his claim as America's first black president. (It's like saying Al Jolson was the country's first black singer.)

We may not live in a color-blind society, but Obama is the new black. And like Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently stated more than 40 years ago, "Do not judge me by the color of my skin, judge me by the content of my character."