Obama's symbolic appeal

Theodore Dalrymple:

Like it or not, the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States has done an immense amount to restore American prestige in the world. Not since the destruction of the Twin Towers has there been dancing in the streets anywhere on the planet to celebrate events in America. It is to be hoped, of course, that it is not the same people doing the dancing.

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There are, it is true, a few naysayers: in the liberal British newspaper The Guardian, columnists whom one suspects were either stuck for something new to say about the election or prey to especial private bitterness argued that the election was not really a blow for racial equality because Michelle Obama could never have been elected, and the Republican Party certainly would never have chosen a black nominee. This seems to be a somewhat hard test for the United States to pass. Such people will not really be satisfied until the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan is black.

On the other hand, the columnists did inadvertently draw attention to the absurdity of assuming that Obama’s election will have some magical effect upon race relations. It is grossly premature to think that America, or anywhere else for that matter, has now reached some kind of post-racial consciousness in which color has become completely unimportant. To think so is to be very unrealistic about the potentialities and the actualities of the human race itself.

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The best way to demonstrate that Obama's color is unimportant is to treat him like any other liberal Democrat. He is entitled to the same criticism we would give anyone else who espouses the evils of liberalism and we should not shrink from doing so because of his race. Those who think such criticism is racist are in fact the racist who believe that it is unfair to criticize Obama because he is black.