"As good as the best of them" might well have been Barack Obama's slogan as he rose to be editor of the Harvard Law Review, faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School, state representative and U.S. senator. It is easy to see all the ways in which his race could have played a part in his rapid rise, but not necessarily in the way his opponents might suggest. Being an outsider probably taught him how to work well in two worlds, the world of those who take their place of primacy for granted and the world of those who have no such place, or who have to fight for it twice as hard.

Much has been made by Senator McCain's supporters of his history as a survivor of a Viet Cong prison camp, of the broken bones and psychological onslaughts that he withstood for five long years. They argue that such an experience builds character. They should also take note of the challenges faced by a black man in America, challenges that have built Senator Obama's character. These may be harder to quantify than imprisonment and torture, but they are onerous in a different and inescapable way.

The McCain forces have accused the Democratic candidate of injecting race into the campaign. That's silly. The man is black. His candidacy is indivisible from that fact, given the history and pathology of this country. When Senator Obama said that he did not look like the guys on our currency and that his opponents were likely to portray him as Other, he was stating the obvious. Perhaps he was also pointing out that, despite efforts to maintain the status quo by generations of conservatives, this remains a nation so progressive that an American from a group once held as personal property could become president. The suggestion of something untoward was pandering to stereotypes and fear. Senator McCain was playing the Caucasian card.

Does that sound offensive? I suppose it is, just as offensive as styling the race card a pejorative. But any black man or woman in America has heard worse. If people make assumptions about you simply on the basis of your appearance all your life, assumptions ranging from criminality to sloth to unearned opportunity, it can make you bitter and hard and cynical. That none of those things is part of the Obama character means that he has turned his particular version of the race card into an ace and is using it to play with the full deck. That is not a deficit. It is an advantage.

© 2008