I know some of you readers are thinking, "You forgot about Oprah". But she's another really complicated discussion on race by itself. And, no, this is not the appropriate forum to discuss that one other "O" besides Oprah, so get your minds out of the gutter. 
 
It's clear and understood that Obama is of mixed race: his mother is a white woman and his father is a black man. However, it seems as if Obama is being stripped of his white heritage, by and large, through gross mischaracterizations and insinuations about his relationship with Pastor Jeremiah Wright. 

As if a half-white man of Obama's words and actions could hold any vitriol or hate in his heart for people that he is borne of.
 
But America robbed Obama of his white ancestry long before he was born. And if some in this country have their way, it will never be returned to him. 
 
Consider this: the one drop rule was once an American government edict that if a person had a trace of black blood within his or her veins, no matter the varying heritage of his or her parents, then she or he was black. And we all know that the designation of "black" did not mean privilege or even equality, but instead hardship and persecution. 
 
For many on both sides, the residuals of this designation still exist.

Although blacks and whites share the exact same humanity, we do not share the same experience or history. That does not make either of us better than the other, and neither does it mean that violence against the other is warranted or right. 
 
And, as much as some are going to deny it, this is the exact same philosophy of Pastor Jeremiah Wright: a man who has as one of his dearest advisers and confidants a white priest, a man who encouraged and ministered a black female to marry the white male love-of-her-life, a man whose ministry aids folks of every race, never turning away anyone because of his or her color.

Wright is neither racist nor hateful nor anti-American. 
 
The immoral Iraq war, the extreme poverty, the thousands of false incarcerations, the mistreatment of immigrants-- these are the concepts of which Jeremiah Wright preached. And all of these things should be shameful to a country that preaches such lofty standards and projects such a glossy-sheen facade. 
 
Obama's black ancestry is inextricably tied to who he is because his people were the oppressed and, in some ways, continue to be. 
 
Whites have the privilege to shrug history off their shoulders because history never caged their very being into some kind of negative, ugly existence. The present is no different than the past in some respects for black and brown folks. 
 
I die a slow death on the inside every time I hear a cable news anchor say that a certain percentage of Americans won't vote for Obama because he's black, because of his black blood. The fast soft-shoe routine these reporters dance to avoid calling these people by their rightfully earned name of 'racist' would be laughable if it weren't so painfully depressing. 
 
That is not to say that every person who has voted for Clinton or will vote for McCain is a racist; in fact the exact opposite is true. Righteousness and fairness is on the side of a person who can wrest his or her mind and heart away from that insidious, unspoken yet understood notion in this country that whiteness-is-better, and vote for Clinton or McCain without the least consideration that Obama's black ancestry is a negative. 
 
But what's mind numbing is the gall of some people to criticize black people who cite Obama's black ancestry a plus in their decision to vote for him. On a huge political stage, blacks are in solidarity that blackness is a good thing - in addition to Obama's being a well qualified, suitable candidate for President - and they are being criticized for it. 
 
The negative connotations of blackness are wearing thin and blacks are continuing the struggle to no longer internalize the concept that their blackness is bad or wrong or ugly. 
 
So, when for so long blackness has been a negative - an ugly concept - I stand in awe of the audacity of some people to criticize black folks who see Obama's blackness as a positive. 
 
And some folks are so angry with Pastor Jeremiah Wright, so angry that such defiant words spewed from his black mouth. They say, "How dare this black man say America is wrong in its dealings with foreign brown and black people as well as its own black and brown people?" And, of course, some appeasing folks in the Republican Party and elsewhere nod their heads in docile agreement. 
 
These same people hone in on only one or two statements by Jeremiah Wright to avoid considering the overall, unadulterated truth of what he speaks in the entirety of his sermons. 
 
White and black folks alike know the type of folks I write of when I reference those angry with Wright: the ones that pretend as if in their lives they've never witnessed an instance of racism against black and brown people, the ones that just don't get why blacks make a big deal about real racist acts against them, small or large - the ones that wish all of this racism stuff could just be flicked away like an annoying gnat. 
 
Obama shouldn't waste his time convincing those people that he is worthy because they don't even think his humanity is worth considering.  And I think the weight carried by black and brown votes as well as the votes of whites in Obama's camp is going to be heavier in the upcoming election than some people are willing to acknowledge. 
 
You may know him as Martin, but many know him as martyr. "Why America May Go to Hell" was the final sermon Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had written before he died. I suspect in the words of this sermon that he was not the cuddly teddy bear many have molded him to be, but instead the fierce critic that he really was of America and its sins. 
 
In essence, I suspect that he was much like Jeremiah Wright in it. 
 
Those who screech their opposition to Jeremiah Wright while at the same time praising Martin Luther King are delusional. They can yell as loudly as they want, but truth has a funny way of being heard even in its silence. 
 
So, Obama's whiteness and blackness are truly abstract ideas. Those who deny his white heritage and wrongfully brand him anti-American via his association with what they purposely mischaracterize as a racist, black separatist church - something the Trinity United Church of Christ is not, just ask its white members - are only acting out what they've been taught: that whiteness would give him the right to be the next President of the United States, the right to be respected as a man, and the right to do whatever else, while his blackness would not.

Obama embraces his blackness because it is only the self-confirming, self-preserving, honest thing to do. By becoming the next President of the United States, Obama will show a national and international audience that skilled and capable blackness is on par with skilled and capable whiteness - a concept that is truly revolutionary, indeed.