Since no one has pointed out the obvious, I guess I will...
First of all, Obama is as white as he is black. His black father ditched his family and he was raised by the white half.
I think that because his appearance obviously reflects more of his black heritage than his white heritage, he probably always has had to and always will face the challenges that other "completely black" people have to deal with. And I'm sure that, to those who might unfortunately judge others based on their skin colour, they wouldn't take Obama's "white half" into account and feel that he's a better person than someone who's "completely black" just because he's got Caucasian blood in him.
I am NOT thrilled that so many people voted for BO for extremely superficial reasons.,,, he's tall, looks good, speaks well (just don't take him away from the TelePrompTer) is black (well, half black), and VERY important to some, has "D" by his name.
Well, he's not exactly the first person to be accused of using their appearance to attract votes, is he? Sarah Palin, anyone? Okay, so she lost. But there's also JFK, Ronald Reagan, the list goes on.
I have black friends who admitted that they "had" to vote for Obama. I guess I'm not surprised by that.. it's just a lousy reason to vote FOR or AGAINST someone. I'm having trouble seeing that as progress.
This I understand and agree with, but I'm sure that the people who voted blindly just because of Obama's skin colour didn't win him the election. I have a little more faith in people than that. Sure, the world's not at the point yet where everyone's an informed, well-researched voter (or even at the point where everyone votes, if we ever get there) but I do think we're making progress. Electing a black man into the White House, regardless of "how black" he is, would never have happened even as recently as 30, 40 years ago, IMO, so I think this is huge progress.
