Thanks to Shanikka for an important diary.  If Obama's candidacy makes Americans talk to each other like this, it's an immense achievement, win or lose.

Part of the problem is the unspoken American conceptual frame: radical individualism; defining race as a characteristic of individuals; racism as an belief of individuals about other individuals; equality as consciously judging an individual without regard for "skin color," as if race were just a question of complexion, and behavior were just a function of conscious belief.

Race is a code for classifying people as different.  Skin color is one of many markers for "race" -- the one we use in the U.S.  These markers are social constructs.  In Brazil or South Africa, someone with parents like Obama's would not be considered "black," because race is a spectrum in Brazil and was a pseudo-scientific multiple classification in South Africa.  In the U.S., the historical definition of race was the one-drop rule; but this used to be different in Louisiana, which was more like the Caribbean/Latin world in its construction of race. For Nazis, hair color, nose size, and religious background were markers of race (that's why some of my relatives were killed).  

My wife is a social worker in Bedford-Stuyvesant who sees mostly black people -- not typical black people, but those with severe psychological and social problems.  But I hear about the family histories.  And these family histories are the result of trauma, unemployment, marginalization, forced migration, rape, exclusion from education .... you name it.  Sometimes it is amazing that anyone can emerge sane and whole from these experiences (though not all black people share all of them in the U.S.).  "Race" is a category for color-coding the socially marginalized.

Some people intellectualize it into a theory or belief system.  In contemporary American most people don't.  But the social system in which we live produces and reproduces such attitudes because of the interactions it makes us have.  

A seemingly trivial example about myself:  Once I couldn't find something in a huge supermarket. I saw a neatly dressed black guy with short hair and a pen in his shirt pocket, so I went over to ask him where it was. It turned out he was another shopper -- he wasn't a supermarket worker.  He didn't have the uniform on.  I was mortified at my stereotyping racist behavior.  

I don't "believe" that all blacks are supermarket workers or social inferiors.  My adviser at Yale was a black professor of Afro-American history, and I was his research assistant on a book on the history of black communities under slavery. But my social experience led me unconsciously to code my fellow shopper as a social inferior in this context.  I am not a "racist" in any ideological sense.  My mother took me to hear Dr. King speak at the March on Washington when I was 13 (I have a dream etc.).  I marched with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.  Etc. etc.  But I committed an act of racism (and probably others) because of the way that social structure affects my perceptions and behavior.  What if I were a teacher or a policeman or an employer? What effect would I unconsciously have on others.

I'm not confessing "guilt."  I am taking responsibility for trying not to be a racist in a racially coded society.  Not being a Nazi or an ideological white supremacist is not enough, because this system (racism) reproduces itself even without such ideological rationales as long as we don't consciously struggle against it (and even then...).  

The conclusion being: many white (and other non-black) people may vote for Obama regardless of his race because he is an extraordinary individual.  But that by itself does not change the racially coded social structure of the United States.  Maybe Obama will be the leader who can help whites realize that changing this social structure is not a threat against them but a promise for us all.  I hope so.  Maybe his candidacy will at least get us started on these discussions.

But eliminating racism requires a transformation of structures of employment, housing, education, taxation.... and also a change in U.S. national identity.  Most people in the U.S. have European ancestors (including a large number of black people), but our culture is a mix of African, European, and our own creativity.  "White" gospel music in this country shows strong African influences.  So does "white" popular music and popular religion.  The people of this country invented forms of music -- an essential part of all civilization -- that have conquered the world with their genius and beauty, and in this music African and European elements are fused into an entirely new creation.  

It's a work in progress.