Mick Hartley

John McWhorter on what Obama means for Black America – no doubt talking from personal experience here:

This has been a sad aspect of growing up nerdy for black students since the mid-'60s, when school integration left black students amid wary and often nasty white students. A natural response was a sense of school as the province of the other, i.e. "white."

Since then, black peers have passed this notion down the generations. For decades, there have been innumerable reports of black students faced with a choice between hitting the books and having black friends.

From now on, however, there is a ready riposte to being tarred as "acting white" for liking school: "Is Barack Obama white?"

It's the perfect smackdown–not even the most hardened black teen will disown the heroism of the first black president, in all of his nerdiness.

Also – at last – figures like Al Sharpton will no longer be seen as spokesmen for the "Black Community":

[R]ecall Sharpton during a Democratic debate in 2004, accusing Howard Dean of racism in not having black people in his administration as governor of Vermont. Never mind that only about 3,000 [black] people lived in Vermont, many of them children. Dean had to accept this out of respect to Sharpton as a "leader."

Fast forward: This year, there was no routine with Obama seeking Sharpton's "endorsement." Sharpton's initial harrumphs about Obama's black bona fides, along with warnings that he had yet to "make up his mind," were passing news at best. And who can recall just when Sharpton decided to come around? It didn't matter–Obama is too beyond him.

Most black people have always considered [Jesse] Jackson and Sharpton celebrities rather than "leaders." Non-black observers will now have no reason to suppose otherwise–and as such, will give up the talk-radio misimpression that black America lives in thrall to two colorful preachers. Obama's greater gravitas is starkly apparent both in his office and in the substance of his intentions.