Popular blogger La Shawn Barber has tried to move away from political blogging on her “Corner,” but today she said she had to “alleviate the growing pressure inside [her] head” about Barack Obama’s candidacy, and she doesn’t mince words:

I feel no “racial pride” that he’s the first black major party nominee or that he’ll be the first black president of the United States, because values trump race in my world. Anyone who believes it’s OK for “doctors” to crush the heads of infants in the birth canal isn’t getting my vote. If you’re black and pro-life but feel “torn” between racial pride about his nomination and disgust for his pro-death stance, shame on you. Get your priorities straight.

She also discusses her disenchantment with John McCain.

Morehouse College, one of the most prominent “black” colleges in the United States, has just had something unusual happen.  Or at least it seems unusual.  They’ve just had their first white valedictorian.  His name is Joshua Packwood.  Some blacks are mad about it.

In some ways, the defensive pose is understandable. Black consciousness is rooted in the need for oppositional ideologies, developed to protect the community from the ignominy and violence resulting from racism. The Harlem Renaissance, negritude, the Black Arts and Black Power movements all sought to affirm the value of black and African culture, heritage and identity. In his essay “Orphée Noir,” the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre identified negritude as a sort of “anti-racist racism.”  

Hmm.  It’s an interesting problem.

Hillary Clinton’s win in West Virginia (and New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) proves she can do something Barack Obama hasn’t so far: win-over Middle America. But Obama’s inability to do so, a must if he wants to call 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. home, has led to many interesting conspiracy theories. A possibly unfair one: Those not voting for him are racist. Highlighting this absurdity is an article in the latest issue of The New Republic, suggesting that Senator Obama is disadvantaged because he is black.

In his article, John B. Judis cites a 2001 Freudian-like study which shows that voters, especially “white working-class voters,” harbor “racial sentiments,” or subliminal racism that grows like mold in the privacy of a darkened voting booth. He believes, “racism remains deeply embedded within the psyche of the American electorate.” It has already been a factor in the primaries—in the states Obama lost— he says, and will be a greater factor in the general election.

But are some Americans, especially “white working-class” ones, not fawning over Obama because he is black, or because what he supports doesn’t reflect their values? His inability to garner the support of the middle-class is largely due to his message, not his melanin.

As Kathleen Parker points out on nationalreview.com, Middle Americans are not angry over skin color, but rather scared of what will happen to their way of life if someone who misunderstands it is elected. For example, Obama’s demeaning remarks suggesting middle-class voters “cling to guns or religion” to deal with frustration has many believing Obama is stuck in the ivory tower. “What they sense,” says Parker, “is that their heritage is being swept under the carpet while multiculturalism becomes the new national narrative. And they fear what else might get lost in the remodeling of America.”

So while liberals, Democrats, and authors such as Judis would have us believe that “America’s racial history continues to influence the calculations of voters,” that view cannot be the whole story. As Alisa Harris shows us, race is still an issue. But that doesn’t mean that as a whole we are not ready for a black president. Rather, many are not ready for the sacrifices implicit in electing this black man president. Because, as Parker says, “there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.”

In his now infamous remarks at the National Press Club, Rev. Jeremiah Wright said to applause from black leaders, “This most recent attack on the black church is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright; it is an attack on the black church.”

He went on to say, “It is our hope that this just might mean that the reality of the African-American church will no longer be invisible. …. Maybe that religious tradition will be understood, celebrated, and even embraced by a nation that seems not to have noticed why 11 o’clock on Sunday morning has been called the most segregated hour in America.”

He was right about a few things: American churches are still segregated and until now, many white Christians were ignorant of black liberation theology. But just how mainstream are Wright’s views?

In the Globe and Mail, Michael Valpy says Americans are finally realizing the scope of black liberation theology, calling Wright “not a radical kook but a mainstream voice” and adding, “There are a lot of Jeremiah Wrights across their land.”

Other accounts paint a more complicated picture. God-o-Meter and The New Republic note that Wright’s church is more liberal and socially progressive than many black churches. NPR quotes another Church of Christ pastor in agreement with Wright: “”It is an attack on the black church — to muzzle us to silence the preaching and the power of that form of teaching and preaching and action in the world.”

But a Pentecostal pastor disagrees: “Jeremiah Wright is not mainstream. … He doesn’t represent the majority. … My guess is maybe 25 percent of black pastors may hold that view.” Another pastor told Bloomberg.com that Wright’s comments “were just totally ridiculous and do not reflect mainstream thought in the African-American community.” A Chicago pastor said Wright has done good in the Chicago community, but he’s a “very militant minister” who “took advantage of the big stage.”

The Associated Press finds pastors divided between their admiration of Obama and Wright and their disapproval of the way they handled the disagreement. The New York Times says parishioners are less likely to defend Wright than their pastors. Bloomberg.com quotes one of Wright’s ex-parishioners saying he partly agrees with Wright, but that Wright doesn’t represent the black church: “I feel like he’s trying to be a spokesperson for the black Christians, but we don’t want different races to look at us through Jeremiah Wright.”

Despite the fact that Obama says he wants his campaign to transcend race, exit polls and election anecdotes seem to reveal another shameful truth: Some people aren’t going to vote for a black candidate, and others are going to put up vocal, overt and racist opposition.

Andrew Sullivan says, “I think all of us who once dismissed the fashionable view around the world that a black man would have a real problem becoming an American president have had a learning experience these past few weeks. … You have to be blind not to see the impact of race.”

In Pennsylvania, the Obama campaign dealt with vandalism and volunteers faced racial slurs. The North Carolina GOP party ran an ad John McCain denounced and the New York Times condemned as “a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state.” Pennsylvania exit polls showed the usual racial rift: Clinton won white voters – the older the voter group, the greater the margin – while Obama won 85 percent of the black vote.

An April AP-Yahoo poll found that 8 percent of white voters would be uncomfortable voting for a black candidate, but given people’s reluctance to admit racism the number is probably higher. A prominent Republican told Politico’s Roger Simon that if Obama faces John McCain, the racist vote is worth 15 percent to McCain.

If McCain is getting the racist vote in November, is Hillary Clinton getting it now? Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told Talking Points Memo that race-based voters are “probably firmly in John McCain’s camp anyway.” But in Pennsylvania, about one in five said the candidate’s race was among the top deciding factors, and white voters who cited race supported Clinton over Obama three to one.

The racial tension is spilling over into party politics. The Washington Post leads today with a story about Democrats fearing a racial divide within the party. After Bill Clinton accused the Obama camp of playing the race card on him, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn called Clinton’s behavior “bizarre” and accused the Clinton campaign of marginalizing black voters and creating racial divides within the Democratic party.

On The Corner, Victor Davis Hanson says, “Much of the tragedy of the Obama campaign is how ever so steadily, incrementally its theme has devolved into a racialist message.” The question is whether or not this racialism was always present in Obama’s campaign, as Hanson suggests, or due to a still racially charged political climate.

The Root asks, “How will black voters react if Obama retains the lead in delegates, popular votes, states won and money raised, but the superdelegates give Clinton the nomination?”  The Root answers: They will not like it.  They will not like it one bit.  At times, the article has an uncomfortable subtext that, perhaps, blacks will rise up somehow against this tyranny.  Perhaps like rioters after the Rodney King decision or the Martin Luther King assassination.

Many will argue that if a candidate with as much multi-racial appeal as Obama cannot be treated fairly, then there is truly no hope of any black in the U.S. (with perhaps the exception of a black Republican) to win the nation’s top office in the foreseeable future. 

The issue, however, doesn’t seem to be about blackness.  Its seems to be about winning-against-McCain-ness. 

Here’s a nice article explaining the Cosby Effect in black identity and politics. The whole thing started in 2004 with “The Pound Cake Speech” that he delivered at the NAACP awards.

He began by noting that although civil-rights activists had opened the door for black America, young people today, instead of stepping through, were stepping backward. “No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband,” he told the crowd. “No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.” There was cheering as Cosby went on. Perhaps sensing that he had the crowd, he grew looser. “The lower-economic and lower-middle-economic people are not holding their end in this deal,” he told the audience.

Cosby disparaged activists who charge the criminal-justice system with racism. “These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake,” Cosby said. “Then we all run out and are outraged: ‘The cops shouldn’t have shot him.’ What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else. And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said, ‘If you get caught with it, you’re going to embarrass your mother.’”

Then he attacked African American naming traditions, and the style of dress among young blacks: “Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what’s wrong … What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans. They don’t know a damned thing about Africa- with names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed, and all that crap, and all of them are in jail.” About then, people began to walk out of the auditorium and cluster in the lobby. There was still cheering, but some guests milled around and wondered what had happened. Some thought old age had gotten the best of Cosby. The mood was one of shock.

Ever since, Cosby has been on the road promoting a new kind of conservatism for blacks, the kind that resonates in “black barbershops, churches, and backyard barbecues, where a unique brand of conservatism still runs strong.” If you’ve only caught bits and pieces of Cosby in the news of late, you might enjoy this article at The Atlantic. It’s actually written by a journalist who once denounced Cosby as elitist, but who seems to be liking his ideas more and more.

White people have specific tastes, interests, and patterns according to a new blog that has quickly reached national prominence. ABC News reports:

“Three months ago, Christian Lander was nothing more than an anonymous Internet copywriter living in Los Angeles. Today, his blog “Stuff White People Like” is a heavily-trafficked, much-discussed site that last week netted him a book deal.”

Lander, a white man, has stumbled into creating a online experience for people to openly mock, investigate, and pursue what it means to be white in America. “This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. They are pretty predictable,” he writes.

The site’s most read post is about “Asian girls” and why white people (specifically men, in this case), love them. The post got more than 1,700 comments. Among the first list of post regarding what white people like:

#25 David Sedaris
#24 Wine
#23 Microbreweries
#22 Having Two Last Names
#21 Writers Workshops
#20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
#19 Traveling
#18 Awareness
#17 Hating their Parents
#16 Gifted Children
#15 Yoga
#14 Having Black Friends
#13 Tea
#12 Non-Profit Organizations
#11 Asian Girls
#10 Wes Anderson Movies
#9 Making you feel bad about not going outside
#8 Barack Obama
#7 Diversity
#6 Organic Food
#5 Farmer’s Markets
#4 Assists
#3 Film Festivals
#2 Religions their parents don’t belong to
#1 Coffee

Since Landers is white, critics have resisted the charge of racism. But what is interesting is some people’s concern that this is more than satire. Of course, it is rarely considered “racist” if someone critiques trends within one’s own race. (Chris Rock, for example, frequently criticizes ghetto culture.)

Other recent posts about what white people like include outdoor performance clothes (North Face, REI, Mountain Equipment Co-Op, Columbia Sportswear, and Patagonia), Whole Foods and Food Co-ops, wearing shorts as much as possible, soccer, recycling, public radio, and more.

Since whites are the dominant culture, “stuff white people like” drives the marketplace. For racial minorities, however, this list may indicate the kinds of issues and topics one may need to appropriate to assimilate into the dominant culture’s social and professional settings.

The domain for “stuff evangelicals like” has already been registered with Word Press, a blog hosting site. In the satirical and self-critical spirit of Lander’s blog, what types of things could be listed on such a list for evangelicals? If asked, I would submit that evangelicals like throwing rocks at the big, bad Goliath called “the culture.” What else?

Roger Clegg, the president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, must not have liked Obama’s speech last week on race.  Because he asks, “Do you want to hear a REALLY honest speech about race in America?”  First, he says, in his faux speech, “race relations in this country are good, have never been better, and are improving.”  Second, we still have racism in America, “[b]ut there is less and less of it, especially among younger people. And the old racists, of all colors, will eventually die off.”  Third, and this is the controversial one, he says that “illegitimacy, drug addiction, and crime” that are more common in the black population are not the effects of racism, but causes of it.

Let me be even more blunt and specific: The biggest domestic problem America faces today, and certainly the biggest problem that the African-American community faces today, is that seven out of ten African Americans are born out of wedlock. The racial disparities - and any resulting racism - we see all stem principally from this sad fact.

Is he right, wrong, or somewhere in the middle?

I’m from Bulgaria and still learning more about English language usage. Impressed by one of the presidential hopefuls I told my cousin, “This boy, Obama, is the best orator of them all.” She looked at me with fear and explained that it was dangerous to call a black man “boy,” since slave owners had used that term for their male slaves in the nineteenth century. It did not matter that I was not a slave-owner or that Obama had never been a slave.

Maybe you have to be an outsider to be surprised at such sensitivity, but I should point out that the world knows about slavery and segregation in America. It will benefit America to learn the history of the world. Other nations have had much worse for many more centuries and they do not brood on the past as much. In just a few years after gaining freedom from Turkey in 1878, the Bulgarians got over centuries of their children being taken from their families to be forcefully converted to Islam. These “enichari” were trained as soldiers of the sultan to be sent back to their native villages to continue murdering the fathers, raping the mothers, and taking even more Bulgarian children as government taxation.

We have to remember the evils of the past so we do not relive its horrors. And we are to mourn the victims. But unless people forgive, really forgive, and move on, they will keep bickering over their segregated past long after the Tutsi and Bhutto have found harmony in Rwanda. And Martin Luther King’s dream will never come true. Call me a wishful thinker but I have seen many Christians of racial and ethnic minorities who are now free to love their neighbors regardless of melanin content. God has more power than history. He can heal any pain, ancestral or personal.

I want to see the end of the American racial divisions but I don’t want to have to consult the current politically correct dictionary. I do not intend to feel uncomfortable because of the color of my skin or the shape of my skull. I will make every effort to judge people solely on character, just as Martin Luther King preached.