A different kind of black

I, like so many around the world, am pinching myself as Barack Obama is elected the 44th US President.

Obama's realised ambition has sent a ripple of hope through neighbourhoods of “colour” and neighbourhoods where racism still threatens to dwarf self determination and aspiration.

My birthplace, South Africa, made sure I was conscious of my colour and everybody else's. People of mixed blood, "coloured", as my mob were referred, were distinct for all the wrong reasons.

Apartheid was like living at a foreign airport, having to go routinely through the ritual of customs. That ritual is characterised by the assumption of one's criminality, of one's shame or guilt. You approach the desk with all your papers intact but with a sense of being called to prove yourself. You learn to be polite, clear and efficient, because you recognise that the other mob have incredible, unilateral power.

Even though South Africa has now been led for more than a decade by black politicians, many South Africans of mixed heritage can't shake themselves free from the internally held propaganda that they are better off being governed by a white fellah. White fellahs are more competent, more market-driven, more objective.

Ringing in my ears are the comments of a coloured relative during a visit to Durban: "They are taking over" he said, referring to black Africans moving in from outlying areas of the city, taking jobs in the trades once reserved for his more exclusive coloured community. "They are a safety hazard. I tell them 'up' and they say 'down'. They're dangerous and stupid."

He told me how he has a gun and it sits between his legs when he drives his battered BMW about town. Trust is a commodity in short supply.

Trust has been critical to Obama's success but he must recognise that the road ahead will not be easy.

Barack Hussein Obama was not surprised that his name became an irresistible target of mocking websites from overzealous Republicans wanting to falsely link him to the world's most wanted terrorist.

As a person of mixed heritage - with a name that occasionally raises eyebrows in Australia - I understand his expectation. But I reckon the most fascinating element of Obama’s campaign was what he did with his “colour”; how he played it and what the African American community made of him as a Democrat presidential hopeful. That story, his story, may tell us something about what means in contemporary USA to be “black”.

What has made Obama's political trajectory all the more remarkable is NOT that he is black but that colour or race does not define him.

He is the Oprah Winfrey of US politics. Oprah, who has famously endorsed Obama and years before admitted she voted Republican, does not put her colour before her gender. She talks mainly to white women and their pain. Obama's constituency is in large part the same as Oprah's - middle class America. Oprah and Obama are comfortable about their past and do not let colour determine their place in the world.

Race continues to have a very powerful hold on people in the US, not least because of the country's tortured racial history. My friends in the US say white Americans like Obama because he's “a different kind of black”.

He's “jazz cool” precisely because he is does not come burdened with the racial resentments that people from the slave tradition have against African Americans. In other words, he doesn't threaten whites. He makes them feel okay.

What Obama has shown is that voters size up candidates according to their culture. If the candidate fits in, it builds trust. And if there is trust they can give the candidate their political support.

Obama knows that unemployment among African-Americans is still twice that of whites. Four black families in every ten have no man in the house, a precursor for disadvantage. But you rarely hear him talk about “black issues”.

As a fan of the television series The West Wing I can't help but draw similarities between Obama and its fictional Democrat, Matt Santos, who's Latino heritage seemed both a strength and weakness. Santos and members of his team wondered, "Shouldn't a Latino candidate advance the Latino cause?" Santos knew the risk. "Latinos coming out in favour of a Latino. Doesn't it just feed into Republican hands?" In the end he played down his ethnicity, convinced that he would be able to focus on minority issues once he took office. He had to neither alienate whites nor abandon the people who got him there.

The symbolism of Obama's success is powerful to people as far away as Wagga Wagga and Wilcannia. Communities of people isolated within Australia because of their colour, or those who have found sanctuary here after fleeing racism and ethnic violence in other parts of the world, may well be buoyed by Obama's success in the US where dollars and dynasty can often determine the Presidential outcome.

The colour of my or your skin, this win attests, is nothing compared with one’s ability to lead and inspire people of all backgrounds.