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Obama and Race

Am I the only one a little taken aback by this piece from The Associated Press over the weekend?

It's about how some feel that President Elect Obama's racial classification as black is somehow erroneous. He has said over and over that he is of mixed race - his mother was white woman from Kansas and his father a black man from Kenya.  At the same time, though, Obama also has said he doesn't have a problem with being called African American. "I identify as African-American, that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it," he has said.

But the world has changed since the young Obama found his place in it.
Intermarriage and the decline of racism are dissolving ancient definitions. The candidate Obama, in achieving what many thought impossible, was treated differently from previous black generations. And many white and mixed-race people now view President-elect Obama as something other than black.
So what now for racial categories born of a time when those from far-off lands were property rather than people, or enemy instead of family?
"They're falling apart," said Marty Favor, a Dartmouth professor of African and African-American studies and author of the book "Authentic Blackness."

Personally, I see Obama as man of color who transcends racial divides and who, hopefully, will help lead us out of this current financial mess we're in. In the end, that should be all that matters.