Remembering That Obama is Bi-Racial

According to fivethirtyeight.com, Obama has a 92.5% chance of winning the election. One person close to the election suggested that Obama could lose for two likely reasons: white people once in the privacy of the voting booth can't pull the lever, touch the screen, or punch the card for a black man, or African Americans don't turn out to vote. A combination of the two would surely defeat him.

McCain's use of nasty robocalls and Palin's speeches that continue the slimy insinuation that Obama has a more than passing acquaintance with Bill Ayers are coded messages: don't trust him, he's unknown because he is unfamiliar. Whereas McCain's negative ads are attacking Obama's character, Obama's ads that have been labeled "negative" are attacking McCain's policies, including the Obama ad that has McCain bragging that he voted with Bush 90% of the time. Sorry Andrea Mitchell from NBC, these aren't the same!

Now that Obama is taking time off the campaign trail to visit his ailing grandmother, perhaps Americans who are confused by the Republican slime will be reminded that Obama is bi-racial. His mother and grandparents raised him, and the complex creation of character that Obama traced in his first memoir "Dreams From My Father" comes from a bi-racial heritage. As Amin Maalouf writes in "On Identity" which I have been discussing here, we must leave behind single identities. They are the cause of genocide and violence. When I see the Obama crowds in West Palm Beach and St. Louis, most recently, I see a wave in my country that makes race less important, and a future together more important.