Illusionary race

As explicitly articulated by himself, Obama is a son of a Kenyan man and a Caucasian American woman. Obama might disdain me as one of the people who label him as "too black" or "not black enough," but the matter of fact is that he is white just as much as he is black. Within himself Obama bears experiences and identities of both races. He is a member of black community and a black church-goer. At the same time he grew up with his white grandmother and (although he does not really highlight this fact anywhere in his speech) he enjoyed the highest educational privilege in the predominantly WASP setting. Although the dual experiences co-exist within himself, continuously interact and impact each other, Obama presents as if he constantly oscillates between two opposite, conflicting identities.

I believe that Obama can rather be the very illustration that race is nothing but an illusion. He is a son of a Kenyan man and a Caucasian American -- nothing less, nothing more. None of the conventional racial categories in American society can precisely describe his racial identity. He is the very emblem of blurring racial borderline. Yet Obama chooses to bring in two of existing racial categories to inadequately divide up his identity. By doing so, he resonates with the people of both categories (or people who identify themselves with the categories): on one hand we have people sharing "a legacy of black American anger," and on the other hand we have those suffering from "white working-class anxiety" (Coleman, 188). In this way he successfully employs race as technology to bestow himself with "full arsenal of political ability" (Coleman, 188).

Coleman would argue that Obama made a smart, strategic choice to use race like a tool, like a cane for a blind person. But I do not think his approach to engage the rhetoric of race was the best in addressing the "monumental problems" he brings up in his speech. Many of the problems 21st century America faces did start as the "problem of color line" (to quote Mr. DuBois). However, majority of those problems -- i.e. inherited poverty, educational stratification, and so on -- now self-regenerate themselves beyond the realm of racism. Race now function not as the root cause of such problems, but rather as a stigma against others/from within (in a sense of self-fulfilling prophecy) that reinforces the repeated regression. For America to really face the "monumental problems," Americans need to train themselves to see the root cause beyond the memories of racial division that revisit us like a haunting ghost. In order to do so, it is important to realize that racial distinctions might not be real existence -- that it might be (and I believe it is) a socially constructed illusion. And at this point I'd like to question Coleman -- how can we really perceive race as socially constructed if we keep employing race as tool, race as real existence?

For a blind person, an optometric clinical trial would be a much more effective, fundamental solution than a cane in the long-run.