I think the fear that Obama is "not American enough" is more widespread than racism. (Against Obama personally, not racism in general of course)

Well Lynn, you may have a point, because "not American enough" has a variety of meanings. I think he's "not American enough," but it's not because of his Kenyan or Indonesian connections. He has too much loyalty to Europeans, one-worlders, and any postcolonial with a grievance for my taste.

As for the racism, if you know the joke with this punchline: So the guy at the bar says "No, it's just that I never knew until just now that I'm a lesbian, too!" - then you'll find that it fits well as a false-racism joke about Obama as well.

I think racism is indeed playing a part in all this. But it's Obama's that troubles people.

Let me back up. I'm half-Vietnamese. I have one "Asian" parent and one, let's just say "Pink" parent. Just like Obama. (I wish there was a name - other than "Flesh" for a pinkish-yellow, but there you go.)

I know, and you know - hell, we all know - that race is an unscientific term. It's a very rough, literally pre-literate social construct. Take the term Asian. That means something to folks in the West. To Asians, it's a silly notion. How dare others lump 1/2 of the world's population together into one group! And if you know - really know - anything about the people of Asia, you know that they often express very racist ideas between them. Heck, they do it within the same country in a way that our Mason-Dixon line doesn't even match. The Montagnarde of Viet Nam are considered by many Vietnamese to be subhuman almost. Beijingers think Shanghais are very different kinds of people. (The converse is true.)

All this was illustrated recently when the Chinese dressed ethnic Han Chinese up in the garb of the State's various ethnicities.

But for the record, I'm not Asian. I'm not Pink either. I'm me. A human being. A man. An American. That's it. That's all you get. If you want me to be Asian, you're a fool. If you want me to be Pink (as Asians do not see me as their own either), you're also a fool.

You are letting the social construct, the limitations of a pre-scientific mind dominate over the genetic reality that there are no races.

I refuse to acknowledge race for me. By extension, I think race is a concept that is beneath everyone, but I am at least willing to understand how we've identified ourselves and one another.

This is not a great revelation. Everyone knows this. In fact, that's the ugly thing about race. That we allow the truth to be overruled by the ugly habit.

Everyone knows this, it seems, except Barack Obama.

He sought out race. He identified one. He chose one, and adopted it. He made it his and now he seeks to use it as both sword and shield to gain power.

He's a racist.

The unease many people feel about Barack Obama is that they don't understand exactly why he chooses race. He, if anyone (or anyone else like him, such as me), has a chance that others may not (out of convention or custom) to say "No more. I will not have it. I will not be it. If you are voting for or against me because of my race, don't. You're wrong."

But he didn't. He chose the downward path and now pretends to have the moral high ground to lecture the rest of us about it. I for one will not be lectured on a subject by a man who failed its first exam.

And neither should anyone else.