Once race divided, now differences are an opportunity

THROUGHOUT his barrier-breaking presidential campaign, Barack Obama avoided calling direct attention to race, long a divisive force in electoral politics.

But now, as he stands on the verge of becoming the nation's first black president, Mr Obama is talking more about how his racial identity can unify and transform the country.

"There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American," Mr Obama said in an interview. "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children.

"And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that."

Beyond the symbolism of his historic achievement, Mr Obama said he hoped to use his presidency as an example of how people can bridge differences - racial and otherwise.

"What I hope to model is a way of interacting with people who aren't like you and don't agree with you that changes the temper of our politics," he said.

"Then part of that changes how we think about moving forward on race relations."

Mr Obama's own mixed racial heritage - he is the product of a Kenyan father and a white mother - raised piercing questions of identity as he began his quest for the presidency.

Is he black enough, some asked in his campaign's early days. Did his upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia make him too different to fully appreciate America's painful struggle for civil rights and racial progress that laid the foundation for his ascendancy?

Mr Obama has confronted questions about his racial identity since his earliest days in politics. And now he is confronting new questions, as Americans of differing backgrounds are eager to claim him. Is he the first black president or the first biracial president? Why should the white part of his lineage give way to the black part?

For his part, Mr Obama is unambiguous in calling himself an African American.

Though he has always honoured his white mother and grandparents, the young Obama read African American writers and studied the mien of the black guys he encountered on the basketball court. He was intrigued by older African American men who played cards with his grandfather. He imitated the dance moves he saw on the television show Soul Train, and he tried to swear like the late comedian Richard Pryor.

Mr Obama's style, his habits, his sensibilities, some say, will create a new White House iconography. "He's a brother," said Mr Obama's longtime Chicago barber, Zariff (who goes by one name). "His actions speak more than anything. He still has the same demeanour that he has always had.