WASHINGTON AND ATLANTA — As a black man who has felt the sting of prejudice, President Obama is not only empathetic but uniquely positioned to advance the cause of equality in a country where skin color remains, for many, a barrier to opportunity and achievement.
Yet throughout his career, Obama has been careful to avoid being pigeonholed as serving mainly the interest of African Americans; otherwise, he never would have been elected in November.
The result is a duality to Obama's presidency. He brings aspects of the black experience into the White House -- using occasional street slang, installing a bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Oval Office. But he tries to keep enough distance from racial issues -- transcendence may be his way of seeing it -- to avoid undermining the notion of a colorblind administration.
It is not easy, even for one as deft as Obama, as the latest national debate over race and politics suggests.
Some black leaders are frustrated that the president has failed to confront what they view as his most ardent critics' racism, a charge that gained widespread acceptance, if not credence, when leveled last week by President Carter.
If the current president fails to speak out, said Ron Walters, a University of Maryland political scientist and former political advisor to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, "then who is supposed to exercise the moral leadership?"
Obama, however, shows little desire to wade into the mire of racial politics.
In an unprecedented series of interviews with the Sunday news shows, aimed at promoting healthcare reform, the nation's first black president could not avoid talking about race. He was repeatedly asked if he felt prejudice was fueling antipathy toward his presidency. Each time he delivered a variation of the same modulated message: Yes, there are people who don't like him because he is African American, but no, that's not the main reason his administration has drawn such fierce criticism.
"It's an argument that's gone on for the history of this republic, and that is, 'What's the right role of government?' " Obama told NBC's David Gregory. "This is not a new argument, and it always invokes passions."
The same, of course, could be said about race, which has vexed politicians since the Founding Fathers wrestled, inconclusively, with slavery. But, typically, Obama has confronted race head-on only when circumstance demanded -- such as when his candidacy was threatened by ties to his former pastor, the incendiary Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
