It is really interesting to see how Barak Obama is being framed by the media and political pundits at this convention.  For me, this demonsrates just how difficult it is to move towad a post racist society.  In spite of so many indicators that validate his success in leading the change so desparately  eeded in thi country, there are continuing questions that ask, "Do we really know this candidate?"

Michelle Obama and Ted Kennedy were inspirational last evening.  But the continued commentary remarks about how the voters "don't know Barack Obama or Michelle Obama" are red herrings.  Black people in this country have embarced the very same values of the mainstream since emancipation.  Whether we are struggling for equal education, fair housing, justice in the courts, the freedom to worship, good jobs and upward mobility -- we constantly hear the refrain, "we don't know what they really believe, or what their values are."  These are code words for latent racism.

The reality is that while more Blacks are employed in places where we were once shut out, and more are attending Harvard and Yale and Princeton, and more Blacks are being elected in non-Black majority cties and states -- we go home to segregated family hopes and dreams; we worship separately on Sunday; and we "dream" from a different perspective.  The difference is a legacy of deprivation and a legacy of privilege. 

All of this discomfort is primarily because most white voters haven't reached the point where we "live in a nation where we will not be judged by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character."  So, the Obama's must be elitist, they must be "different" -- they must be inspected more closely, all of their friends and distant associates must be vetted more thoroughly.

Supporting Obama is not transcending race.  It is an attempt to usher in a "post-racist" society.  This does not mean we become color blind.  It means we become more accepting of othes who arrive at the same destinaton from a different origin.  That is the success of the American experiment -- not melting the color or culture out of all of us.