July 17, 2008--It is paradoxical to say it, but the success of Barack Obama frightens black people almost as much as it excites us.

To hear some barbershop talk, it is as if the racial progress in America that Obama's success has helped to crystallize also brings with it a death knell for true racial justice. If Obama becomes the president, every remaining, powerfully felt black grievance and every still deeply etched injustice will be cast out of the realm of polite discourse. White folks will just stop listening.

A black president means that America no longer has any race problem to talk about! It would mean there is no longer any special debt to African Americans to be repaid! Kiss that 40 acres and a mule goodbye, my friends (or that BMer and a Rolex in modern reparations exchange units). Dinesh D'Souza, author of The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society wins and Derrick Bell, author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism loses.

Although I do not personally feel this concern, I do understand this anxiety and why it has some black folks waking up in night sweats. If you believe, as most black people do, that racial discrimination is still a serious problem in this country; if you believe, as most black people do, that the public schools serving too many of our children are failing; if you believe, as most black people do, that the criminal justice system is stacked against our youth; and if you believe, as most black people do, that the economic inequality blacks face cannot be overcome without social policies focusing on the special circumstances of our communities, then a black president poses a dilemma.

Obama's success would seem to undercut these beliefs. If America really is so bad, then one has to ask: How does a black man get to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States?

What black folks fear is that a monumental success for one black man might simultaneously become a setback for the whole race. I am more hopeful than this analysis suggests. But I also appreciate the context feeding the apprehensions. Affirmative action in employment and higher education is already greatly weakened by state and local referenda around the country as well as by court rulings and federal administrative practices.  Our public schools remain troublingly segregated.

The political pressure for serious desegregation efforts was spent long ago.  Three hundred plus years of systematic discrimination—slavery, followed by Jim Crow segregation, followed by urban ghettoization—laid the foundation for what is now an enormous gap in accumulated economic wealth between blacks and whites. This gap shows little to no sign of narrowing.

To make matters worse, basic racial prejudice remains a serious problem. The primary season produced clear evidence of the substantial number of whites who will not vote for a black president, even one as exceptional and as otherwise popular as Barack Obama. Beyond this, a very large body of social-science research points to the persistence of negative cultural stereotypes about African Americans as lazy, sexually irresponsible, unintelligent and more prone to crime and violence.

These racial stereotypes carry broad social potency. Such views influence whites' perceptions of the types of neighborhoods they are willing to live in. They also affect the texture of day-to-day interactions blacks have with whites, whether dealing with waitresses, sales clerks, police officers or corporate executives. And of course such cultural beliefs carry real political potency having contributed to the general public vulnerability of affirmative action and social-welfare policies over the years.

But Obama's success worries us not just because it contradicts the narrative of an enduring racism problem, but because his whole candidacy has advanced and played upon a post-racial mythology. After all, Obama frequently speaks of his white mother, his immigrant Kenyan father, his "typical white person" grandmother and how his story of hybridity and political bridge-building "could only happen in America." The prominent post-racial drumbeat leaves some wondering: Where are the black people in this tale?

Or, to put a high-dungeon, barbershop, black-cultural nationalist spin on it: A black man who has gotten the Democratic nomination for president without articulating any specific agenda targeted at the interests of African Americans has set back the cause of racial justice. He has, in effect, actively collaborated in removing a discussion of the needs of black communities from the public-policy agenda.               

Yes, there is still a deep racial wound in the soul of America. It will be years before the wound has really healed. African Americans have every right to press for serious redress of these grievances, and we must insist that our community leaders do so. But, I also submit, it is not the task of a presidential candidate to make this his or her core agenda. We are all better off with Obama pursuing what the distinguished Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson calls a "universalistic policy" agenda.

Such an agenda speaks broadly to the interests of all Americans, not just to those who might benefit from affirmative action or anti-discrimination efforts. Proving that an African American can do just this with sophistication, eloquence and genuine mainstream, multiracial electoral appeal is a huge political achievement. This achievement will pay dividends, I have no doubt, that will advance the specific needs and interests of black communities.

Yet, it's true that an Obama presidency will undercut certain race-based claims in political discourse and public policy. Critically, we as a people have arrived at a point where a whole new style of intervention and treatment is likely to be needed. The politics of the perpetual outsiders demanding inclusion will finally end (read: Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will get less face time). And good riddance (perhaps). We've come too far over too many years for shrill protest to still be our main political posture today, no matter how necessary and relevant in the past.

It is time to put in place all of the elements of what it takes to be serious and effective insiders; insiders who can lay claim not just to important backstage roles (i.e., Vernon Jordan) but all of the major front-stage ones as well (i.e., Harold Ford, Deval Patrick, Colin Powell, Donna Brazile, Condoleezza Rice).