agreed almost completely, but with a nuance...

I do have my lingering doubts. Obama's skin is black; but his background is not exactly the background of the median American Black: he never lived in a Black family, Black neighbourhood, with Black cultural references. He is the son of a migrant and a white American, raised only by the white American, most of the time in a rather socially outlying state and city (and even outside America).

So, while Obama being elected, whatever good and bad you think of him, does prove that race is no longer an unsurmountable barrier to non-Whites, it does not prove, imho, that an "actual" American Black does indeed have the same opportunities as a White - mostly, because I think that Obama lived more like a White than a Black for most of his life. It is, imho, almost as if Madonna's Malawi-imported children became President... are they in the same basket as US-born, son-of-slaves-lineage, Black-hood-dwelling American Blacks??? I think not. Even though I am now convinced, and that is, yes, thanks to Obama and Powell and Rice, that their race is no longer the reason why they aren't more successful.