Barack Obama and the Great Divide

Regarding the Jan. 25 front-page story "Obama's Appeal to Blacks Remains an Open Question":

It seems to me that an overarching question here is being ignored. What effect has racism had on how blacks view other blacks?

The question of whether Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) can win black votes ("is black enough") hinges entirely on his association with white people. In other words, the premise of those quoted in the article is that if too many white people seem to like a black person, then blacks tend to view that person with suspicion. And now that Mr. Obama faces that suspicion, it has crossed party lines, because in the past it was generally applied to Republicans such as Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Michael S. Steele.

Interestingly, no such issue was raised about former representative Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), who is ideologically to the right of Mr. Obama, but maybe that's because Mr. Ford didn't win in his Senate bid last fall or was viewed as having been the victim of a racist ad.

Additionally, there is a difference between whether black voters would vote for Mr. Obama (I think they probably would, in large numbers, regardless of a poll taken two years before the election) and whether he is the choice of the black "leaders" who are being courted by other candidates with the expectation that they can "deliver" votes.

Frankly, I think the fact that the issue is raised at all indicates that there is still a standard applied to black candidates that candidates of no other race, religion or ethnicity have to consider, proving once again that slavery was, indeed, the Peculiar Institution.

KOJO NNAMDI

Washington

The writer hosts "The D.C. Politics Hour" on WAMU-FM.

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