Reply #33: Here's an excellent commentary on that subject IMO.. [View All]

[Virginia Dare]

(Courtland Milloy today's Washington Post)

A new version of an old race game has been gaining popularity among African Americans lately. I call it, "Divining the White Mind: Can a Black Man Be Elected President?" Imagine a board game in which a black figure moves across a map of the United States, offering up clues about racial attitudes in America.

Here's how my friends and I play:

We start with a figure of mythical proportions, one that can appear to be black in a flash, then instantly meld into the mainstream. A political kung fu master, he can walk on the rice paper of race relations, acknowledging white institutional racism on one hand and exhorting blacks to behave responsibly on the other.

Call him Barack Obama. But who is he really? Our guide to the colorblind Promised Land that Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned? Or a puppet candidate, whose phenomenal financial backing comes with strings attached?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/08/AR2008010804185.html