Is It Because He's Black

I have asked myself on more than one occasion if my support for Barack Obama would be different if he were not black. (For the purpose of this argument I am defining Obama as black, although he is biracial). That question was harder to answer at the outset of the campaign. As a black man, it was definitely satisfying to see an intelligent, articulate, young African American in the race. I still did not think that he would have a shot against the Clinton machine.

It was his winning overwhelmingly white Iowa that made me believe that he could have a chance. It was his loyalty to Rev. Jemimah Wright when it was not in his political best interest. How he took disaster and turned it into the opportunity to speak to Americans as adults about the subject of race. The way that he inspired people These are the reasons that Barack became more than an black candidate to me. He was not just a good black candidate for president, he was the best candidate for president who happened to be black.

In his endorsing of Obama Sunday on Meet The Press, Colin Powell admitted that part of the reason he was voting for Barack Obama was because of race. But that was not enough or he would have endorsed him long ago. He named a number of reasons from the narrowing perspective of the Republican party, to trivial nature of the McCain campaign. He spoke of Obama's intellectual curiosity and his reasoned judgment. The more you listened the more you saw his reason for condemning his party had less to do with race and more to do with sensibility.





Of course I will feel a great sense of pride, as a black man, should Obama win the election but I take even greater pride in the fact that he has proven he's more than a black candidate, but is the better man for the job.