Post-racial America?

At the massive concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the crowd was heavily African-American. But Obama’s team did not play up the racial significance of the venue or the event. The concert was pointedly entitled “We Are One”; U2 was there, performing their song One. The day before his inauguration, a holiday in honour of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Obama issued a statement honouring King that did not include the words black, African-American, or even race. Instead, he talked about King’s “life lived in service to others” and promoted volunteerism. He talked about unity, emphasizing that “our destinies are inextricably linked,” and called on Americans to “remember King’s lesson—that our separate dreams are really one.”

The historian Walker, who has co-written a book on Obama and his pastor, Wright, says that Obama’s language is deliberately vague. “You have to learn to finesse the issues and talk in generalities and high-flying phrases. The language has become an Aesopian language—the intention is hidden in what he is saying,” Walker notes. “He is a centrist and he will pursue policies that will be more liberal than Bush, but he’s not going to do anything wild like declare universal Kwanza or something.” Yet it will be a difficult balance, he says. “In the long term, given the desperate straits of many black people, he will have to speak out on racial issues forcefully. It will be expected by black people of him,” Walker says.

But for many of those who came out to celebrate Obama in Washington this week, there was little doubt that the First Black President would make a difference. “It will change lives,” said Tarik Muhammad, a black 35-year-old school bus driver in Washington. “It will change how people look at other people and how people deal with each other in business and everything. It will change attitudes, relationships, the way people view people of other races. I do see it personally.” It would take him time to get used to the idea of a black president, Muhammad said. “It’s kind of hard to take in. It’s like a dream.”

Robert Riddick, a 40-year-old heavy equipment operator from Woodbridge, Va., said Obama’s election changes the way African-Americans feel in their own country. “It’s as if we can unpack our bags now. We are equal now,” said Riddick, adding that the same holds true for all racial minorities. “I hope the next president is Hispanic. I hope there is a Chinese one and a Japanese one,” he added. His fiancée, Kim Brown, who is white, agreed, “I am excited. It’s a long time coming. I think there will be a lot of equality now. I think there will be more respect for everyone, black, white, yellow, green.”

Some even believe the new face of America will help rehabilitate the country’s image abroad, which has been battered since the Iraq invasion and the Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo scandals. “I think it’s beyond symbolic—I think having an African-American president will send a positive message to the entire world that the U.S. can look beyond colour and have someone of African descent rise to the highest office in the nation,” said Adrian Roberts, 44, who works in technology in New York City.“Given that the rest of the world is largely a community of people of colour, it will be positive,” added Roberts, who is black.

Yvonne Matinyi, an architect from Tanzania who works in Silver Spring, Md., said Obama had already changed America’s image. “Now that people see there is a black president in America, they see anything is possible.” She also noted that “Obama is a celebrity in Tanzania. This is an inspiration for all.”

The optics are certainly good: Obama presents an erudite and bookish, yet cool and stylish, image of masculinity. And the elegant family portrait of the Harvard Law School-trained Obamas, with their two lovely daughters who will be attending the same private school that educated Chelsea Clinton, is an image whose power should not be underestimated, said Adrian Roberts. “Now you see an African-American family and what it can look like, instead of the negative stereotypes portrayed on TV in terms of gang violence and people living in poverty,” he said. “Michelle and Barack both went to Ivy League schools, got a great education, and are raising two beautiful girls. It sends a message to the world that African-Americans are doing it—and are doing it well,” he said.

Others said that Obama’s success sends a message of self-empowerment to African-Americans. “It definitely changes people’s excuses and their saying there is inequity, because now we do have equity for the races in our nation,” said Bill Wright, 53, a network engineer for the phone company Sprint from Gaithersburg, Md. “Not that all prejudice is gone, but it’s a reckoning for America to see a black man in the office. There’s no excuses for black people particularly, who feel they have been held down,” said Wright, who is black. “We can achieve. Just like the slogan goes: yes we can!”

Not everyone was fixated on Obama’s race, however. Angela Owens, a 40-year-old employee of the federal Bureau of Prisons in northern Virginia, said she was more excited by the end of the Bush era than by the President’s race. “It’s not so much his being an African-American president—I’m just excited to have a Democrat,” said Owens, who is black. For older generations, she said, the feelings may be different. But she was excited by Obama’s message of unity. “It’s a spirit of having someone in office who wants to reach out—to all people.”