My son Gabriel didn’t care one bit about politics—until the day he first caught sight of a tall brown brother named Barack Obama. “Mom, he looks just like me!” Gabriel said excitedly as he watched him on TV. “And he’s running for president?”

 

Gabriel Beining is an 11-year-old Barack Obama supporter.

Indeed, with their lanky frames, big ears and toasty brown complexions, my son and Barack Obama could be father and son. That resemblance—and finding out that Obama, like himself, is biracial—was all it took to get my previously apathetic son interested in Obama’s historic run for the presidency. Gabriel’s still no fan of politics, but, at age 11, he’s watched more presidential debates with his mom and dad and listened to more campaign speeches than any kid I know – except me, when I was his age.

 

My excuse when I was a kid is that I was just an all-around political geek (When I was nine, I interrrupted my playing to watch Nixon resign on live TV). But Gabriel’s investment in politics is based on his excitement at the fact that America could soon elect the first black president ever—a brilliant, biracial man who is brown just like him.

 

Like Obama, I grew up biracial in the 1960’s in a world that didn’t really know what to think about “mixed” kids like us. Other blacks were suspicious, and whites could be cruel or thoughtless. What were we? Which race would we ultimately choose? It was tough growing up, but I can truthfully say that most of the racial confusion I felt was inflicted upon me by others.

 

Like Obama, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a black person and was proud to identify myself that way. Identifying myself as black didn’t mean I no longer respected or loved my white family members and friends. And being part white didn’t exempt me from the pain of prejudice or from studying and being indebted to the sacrifices made by martyrs like Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr. I studied their writings and speeches and knew them by heart.

 

That’s why I was more than a little annoyed to catch an interview on public radio the other day with Mary Frances Berry. A few hours before Obama was to clinch the Democratic nomination, the former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and veteran of the Civil Rights Movement appeared on “All Things Considered” to grudgingly admit that Obama was about to make history. But she clearly wasn’t happy about it.

 

Obama’s campaign, she said, had avoided some of the hardest racial issues in an effort to “make people feel comfortable about themselves.”

 

“Most of the civil rights people have some very principled beliefs about social change,” she sniffed. “And, as happy as they are about having a black person in office, at some point they worry about what that person will do.”

 

Berry’s dark prediction filled me with sadness. Why couldn’t she, a woman who fought to win blacks the right to vote a scant 45 years ago, share in the joy of what Obama was about to accomplish?

 

But her words made me angry, too, because she was displaying exactly the kind of divisive racial politics that Obama, in his campaign, has purposely chosen to avoid.

 

When threatened with a full-scale racial crisis back in April over remarks made by his pastor, Obama responded with a speech that acknowledged black and white America’s past and present pain over race while emphasizing their shared humanity. It was a healing speech, in which Obama, with his unique roots in both races, was able to speak thoughtfully and movingly about things no other politician has ever had the authority or the courage to address.

 

Hearing Berry dismiss Obama on the eve of his triumph reminded me that some old-school black leaders had refused to support him in the early months of his candidacy. Because his father was African and his ancestors were never slaves, Obama wasn’t really black and hadn’t experienced the racism black Americans had, they said. To them he was suspect, because he hadn’t paid his dues in the Civil Rights Movement and refused to make racism a central issue in his campaign.

 

Thankfully, Obama absorbed the old guard’s insult and moved past it, building a multiracial coalition of voters and continuing to stress the commonalities of the human race. It is precisely this inclusive philosophy that has won Obama the support of millions of voters of all races, many of whom have never been involved in politics before.

 

Obama, some say, has transcended race and become America’s first “post-racial” candidate. But what does that really mean?

 

Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice, who writes a column about race relations, explained it this way to a colleague who questioned the term:

 

As I’m sure you’ve gleaned, “post-racial” doesn’t mean "post-racism." Rather, it’s a time, or a way of thinking, when the focus isn’t so much on the civil rights era type issues—the stuff Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton might bring to the fore—but on broader issues that affect everybody, including racial minorities. It speaks to a generational divide . . . and a difference in approach.

 

Now I don’t like to kick a gal when she’s down, but let’s contrast Obama’s philosophy with that of his former chief Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. I believe, as do others, that Hillary Clinton’s failure to transcend dated and divisive arguments about gender inequities was what kept her candidacy afloat for some time. And ultimately, it was a large part of what doomed it.

 

Clinton, an old-school feminist, planted herself firmly in gender politics that hearkened back to the 60’s and the 70’s and stirred up old anger and resentments. It seemed she was happy to play off that anger and used it as a tool to unite her followers and divide her party. And I don’t even want to talk about how she – and her husband – squandered years of goodwill, fumbled by their many, many misstatements on race.

 

As a biracial man who preaches inclusion and is willing to serve as a bridge to both races, Obama reflects the future of our increasingly multicultural country.

 

Racism is still here; it will always be with us. I am teaching my children everything I know about Dr. King’s dream and the struggles and the pain of the past.

 

But I am also teaching them hope for the future, and I have more confidence now than I’ve ever had in anyone that Obama will be capable of inspiring all Americans to move past our differences and see ourselves as citizens in a post-racial nation.

 

Yes, it’s a dream, but 45 years ago, so was the concept of America electing a black president.

 

And while I absolutely love that my son is so excited to see a black man poised to become president, I am looking forward to the day when that is no longer a novelty.

 

After all, what sort of conditions did Martin Luther King dream of in 1963? That his children would one day live in a nation where they would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. That they would one day play and go to school and live alongside children of other races. That they would be treated fairly and equally under the law, with the same expectations of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as every other child.

 

Barack Obama may not have marched on Washington with Mary Frances Berry in 1963. He may have one black parent and one white one. But I have a pretty good feeling that the skinny brown kid with the the big ears knows that part of Dr. King’s speech by heart, too.

 

Tracy Dingmann is a former newspaper reporter who lives in Albuquerque.