Obama and the Elusive Idea of Race

I am sure there is anything this President or anyone else can do or say as it relates to race. The top three taboo topics are that way because they can be very personal and intimate: race,politics and religion. It is no surprise that as W.E.B. DuBois said in 'The Souls of Black Folk', "the problem of the 20th century will be the problem of the colorline." In my opinion, that is also one of the problems of the 21st century.

It's not surprising to get involved in a heated discussion about race when you're strolling through a museum exhibit called "Race: Are We So Different?" And wouldn't you know that President Barack Obama would get caught right in the middle of it.

Not all charges that the president isn't who he says he is come from Donald Trump's "Birther" fantasies or a California GOP official's crude email. A young mother and fan had her own issues with Obama when we talked while strolling through the latest attraction at Discovery Place, Charlotte, N.C.'s hands-on science museum.

"Race: Are We So Different?" -- with its science-based displays showing that human beings are more alike than any other living species, and its assertion that no one gene or set of genes can support the idea of race -- shouldn't be controversial or particularly revelatory. That the exhibit is, in fact, both reveals how invested so many people are in racial differences and in the ranking of one race over another. The show -- which closes May 8 -- has inspired discussions by school and business groups in a city with an African-American mayor whose residents have nonetheless scored low on measures of trust among the races.

The mother, with a young daughter at her side and a son in a stroller, couldn't contain her disappointment -- anger, even -- that the president had marked "black" instead of indicating "biracial" or one in the long list of multiracial alternatives on the 2010 census form. She was white; her husband -- not in attendance that day -- was black. And their children were the reason she was upset at the president of the United States and why it was personal. "He's president. He could have been an example," she insisted.

I tentatively engaged her. Since she and her children had the right to choose, wasn't it hypocritical for her to criticize others for their choices? And since -- as the exhibit around us made clear -- race is an uneven line that has shifted throughout history, depending on political and economic expediency, why does a check mark on a page matter so much?

Suppose, at some later date, one or both of her children checked "black" on that census form. Would she love them any less? I asked her.

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