I forgot to say: Dude, you just got Buffengarered.

"those who strike a deal with white America not to make an issue of historical racism if their own race is not used against them."

All blacks should strike this deal right now. They can. They should follow the lead of the Irish and Italians before them and leave their minority status behind. The asians are doing so right now, and hispanics will with in the next decade.

The piece in the Prospect is quite, quite bizarre--and mind you, Phillips is not some crazed conservative nutball although his repudiation of multiculturalism (with some valid points) has garnered some attention.

Ultimately my problem is that I cannot comprehend the entirety of what he is talking about, and I feel that it is not caused by my shortcomings. It seems as if there might be a logic to what Phillips is talking about but that he is leaving out entirely too much of that context. The article is full of logical fallacies (starting from the fact that this "white guilt" or "black hope" are somehow subliminal to voters and that everyone somehow assumes that his victory would mean there was no more racism) and completely unsupported premises that he uses to make his case--whatever it is. Even that is not clear.

He presents only two ways how black folks can succeed in America, the "challengers" and the "bargainers" before marking both as wrongheaded. Even if we take him at face value, he never explains what the right way of achieving racial equality is. My best guess is that he favours the Cosby track at the end of the article, where black people are their own salvation. Cynically I remark that it seems there are in fact three ways to success, now.

In his view, Obama is a "bargainer" where he can, to paraphrase, free the whites from their guilt while removing the supposed racial stigma from the blacks.

The very strangest part is this:

No one wants to know [that "salvation for the blacks will not depend on the whites"]; Obama least of all. And herein lies the problem. Both challengers and bargainers offer a strategy that needs the racial divide to stay at the centre of US life. In truth, Obama may be helping to postpone the arrival of a post-racial America, and I think he knows it.

The latter part is a complete non-sequitur but I think Phillips is not examining the most crucial part: even if we again take his premise at face value and Obama is cynically exploiting blacks and whites with the intention of harbouring the existing racial divide to further his power and agenda (whatever the hell that is, a secret moon base maybe?), even so it would be very likely to have a beneficial affect on the youth in particular.

Or, if we consider the "white guilt" syndrome--which I think is real, perhaps disagreeing with Phillips on its effects as I think that it is still a hinderance for even the otherwise "post-racial" people to be able to normalise relations with other ethnic groups--would not even having it allayed still achieve something, reduce some guards people have built up?

In short, I find this article entirely unconvincing for the sheer incoherence of it. I think Phillips has some good and relevant points but his assumption that Obama is a cynical exploitative figure combined with lack of solid and solidly argued premises and conclusions renders the piece rather useless except for exactly the kind of blind, uninterrogative excerpting Mr. Seaton has performed here.

It has been rightly pointed out that America's racial divide will not magically disappear with an Obama victory. But if having had a black president isn't sufficient cause for racial equality, surely it is necessary. How can we ever say that America has gotten beyond race if there has never been a black president?

I think we are going to have to endure an extended period of interesting, but not entirely well-informed commentary from abroad, as people around the world become increasingly aware of the Obama phenomenon, and offer their interpretations of that phenomenon based on preconceptions about American life.

I think most white Americans have a pretty fair understanding of the concept of "white guilt." But I know an awful lot of white Obama supporters, from a variety of political orientations, and I really don't think white guilt is playing a large role. As hard as it might be for some people abroad to grasp or accept, given as they often are to see this country through textbook stereotypes about the horrifying breadth and depth of omnipresent American racism, most of the people voting for Obama just like him, trust him, like his ideas and attitudes and like the things he says.

Um...yeah, when England has a black Prime Minister then maybe I'll began to care what they have to say on the issue.

Other than that, I've gotta say that your posts give me a good laugh. It must be so wonderful being as high-minded and concerned as you are about black people. Almost all of your anti-Obama posts have some degree of anti-black in them. That you can scour the internet far and wide to find other white people who agree with you is a testament to your abuse of "teh Google". I would suggest that you actually speak to black people, but your posts indicate that you'd think that beneath you, especially if they're younger than 60.

"Almost all of your anti-Obama posts have some degree of anti-black in them."

Word. This dude (Seaton) has some serious racial hangups.

Question for you David Du...er, Seaton: Is it possible that whites are supporting Obama for reasons other than their white guilt? And, if so, why do you assume that the enthusiasm surrounding his candidacy, which seems to be only tangentially connected to his race if at all, must be due to his race anyway?