That's a well thought out post in a number of ways, Janie, and I agree with a great deal of it.

However, here's the interesting thing...to me. You said that "Obama's race is no deterent to his electability, because he behaves, speaks, and sounds like any well-educated, powerful and poised White man. I think White Americans don't really identify him with the dominant African-American culture of the USA.   If he were the same person he is, with the same history, same positions, etc., etc, except that he had dark skin, more negroid features, a "Black" accent, and that wonderful, oratorical style of so many Black leaders who have come from behind the pulpit, enough of the White majority would be threatened and alienated that they wouldn't begin to think of voting for him."

Okay, here's the way I would put it. He doesn't sound like a well-educated, powerful and poised White man. He sounds like a well-educated, powerful and poised person, period. And that's GOOD.

Do you remember the way Sydney Poitier sounded in the splendid movie "In the Heat of the Night"? He sounded like a well-educated, confident, poised person. He didn't sound Black or White. He could have been any color. He was just articulate, well spoken, and thoroughly impressive. I remember a lot of Black people back then who were like that...I knew some personally...but how many of those Black people do I see on American television nowadays? Almost none! No, I see the stereotypical TV Blacks jumpin' and yellin' and jivin' and practically turning themselves inside out showin' everyone how BLACK "they is". Gimme a break! It's damn silly.

What I mostly see on American television nowadays is this ridiculously exaggerated way of speaking and acting that has been aggressively marketed as a walking cliche of the supposed "Afro-American" in movies and TV since roughly the late 60's. It's mouthy, loud, crude, often very arrogant, ignorant-sounding and obnoxious behaviour for the most part, and it does no good service to Black people at all, in my opinion. It's a way of ghetto-izing Black people and separating them from everybody else.

I went out for a while with a woman from the UK who happened to be Black. She didn't sound like an "African-American" as I see depicted on the usual TV shows. Nope, not at all. She had taken on none of the cliche mannerisms seen on American TV. She sounded like any other English middle-class person, well-spoken, articulate, polite...just as articulate as Sydney Poitier or Mr Obama. She had grace and elegance. So do Obama and Poitier.

So you're right that because Obama doesn't sound "Black" (in strictly the present American cultural terms ONLY...and they are pretty gross)...yeah, because of that he doesn't scare the White mainstream.

Well, maybe it would be nice for a change for Black folks in North America to have more role models like that who don't pander to the ridiculously exaggerated supposedly "Black" stereotypes that have been foisted on Americans now by about 4 decades of relentless TV and media marketing...the ludicrous characters like you see on all the sitcoms...trying so damn hard to be "Black" that it has to be seen to be believed. Does anyone ever try that hard to be "White"? Or "Asian"? I sure hope not. It would really be something weird to see, I must say.

I'd rather see someone who just acts like an intelligent person and you could shut your eyes and hear them speak...and you would have no idea WHAT race they belonged to. That would be a big step forward, seems to me.

A racial group does not build itself a stronger identity by turning itself into a completely exaggerated stereotype.

As for the Black preacher style of oratory you allude to...it can have its charms, yes, Martin Luther King did well with it, and so have some others...but I would suggest that a White politician employing that kind of dramatic speaking approach would also scare off and alienate a lot of voters. You bet.

Obama doesn't sound like he belongs to any specific race. He just sounds like a smart, capable, confident human being.

Would a Native American (Amerindian) speaker sound better if he did public speaking in an exaggeratedly LOW, DEEP voice, used expressions like "heap good", "paleface", and "ugh" frequently sprinkled through his dialogue and had a bunch of typically Native moves and poses to dazzle the audience with so as to make sure they NOTICE at all times that he's a Native American and proud of it?

NO. He'd sound ridiculous. He'd be turning himself into a stereotype.

Obama is not stereotypical. He's not a poster boy for his own racial identity...and I say, that's GOOD. It suggests strongly that he can think outside the box of racial identity altogether. If so, he has great possibilities, because we all need to think outside of those boxes a whole lot more.

We need to learn to think outside the box of our gender...our race...our culture...our nationality...and even our species, if we are to become all that we can be, and truly be free.