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Some birracial negroes like Barack and me have what I like to call "the birracial strut". It is the kind of strut or body language that seems always relaxed, especially if the room is filled with white people.

I've been told more than a couple of times that my body language and demeanor is jolting to white people who don't necessarily expected to have a black latina talking to them as an equal. Actually, the people who have pointed it out as a positive have described it as "a breath of fresh air" or "a pleasant surprise". I just walk into room, make myself comfortable and dispense with the inanities of social expectations. To a lot of people who have not had the joy of socializing regularly with people "outside their tribe", this demeanor and way of being in society can be quite calming.

Yet there's the times that this same exact demeanor is described as arrogant in a "how dare you talk to your betters", sort of way. And even in the black community it is considered more uppity than the uppity negroes that Chris talks about [2] in his post-Iowa post. I've been called an uppity nigger by black people.

It's not that biracial negroes socialize in a completely different way than black or white people. It's just that we socialize as equals to both black, whites (and usually any other race).

We don't see distinctions based on racial categories because in our mind there are none. In our minds, we are white. Not just "also white", but "white".

Think about it. The first expression of love for a biracial negro like Barack came from his white mother.

Biracial negroes like Barack Obama suckled from the tits of white mothers. It was our mother's eyes, lips, hair, voice and smell we fell in love. It was a the face of a white woman that we first gazed into and learned to love.

In a case like me, I look like a carbon copy of my mother. I have my mother's face with brown skin and brown eyes. By the same token, my mother has my face with white skin and blue eyes.

Is it any wonder why Barack walks among white people like it's not a big deal?

But it is and that's where that the t-shirt above comes into place.

Long time readers will remember the "the Joe Lieberman in black face [2]" shit storm that happened a while back.

One of the allies that came to the blogger's defense said something to the effect that even though we had spent some times together in Amsterdam, for her "family came first" and for that matter I might as well go to hell. Then the "there are no black bloggers in Harlem [3]" fiasco happened. Both women happened to be in the crowd that ate chitlins and broke cornbread with the former President.

That's when I really got offended.

The woman who talked about defending her "family" looks like one of my aunts. She could have been easily lost in the crowd of my white family. I know this person didn't consciously put her previous statement together with the subsequent actions. It's not like prejudice is premeditated. Yet given she is recognized as one of the top liberal bloggers in the nation, it is an example of how racism resides deep in the heart of every american; even the most liberal of bloggers.

Think about it : To her, this woman of color, could have never been family.

Recognizing how ingrained racism and prejudice is the culture at-large and the psyche within, is the most important first step for any liberal hoping to discuss and understand the audacity of Barack Obama's hope.

Barack Obama comes from a world in which he has not just seen but lived the good and bad of both ends of the color spectrum. There is no need to defend one over the other because he knows how similarly good and similarly bad people can be. He understand social economic catastrophes are not predetermined by a person's race but are wrought by government policies that exploit the politically disenfranchised and the economically weak.

In other words, he understand that race is just one part of the political equation.

This may explain his security detail.

Many of us have fears of Obama's safety [4]. People, or certain people, do not see him the way he sees them and himself. He may be as white as them in his mind, but to them he will be always a nigger. And as Pam Spaulding has documented well, he is one that many on the fringes believe has to be put in his place [5].

Yet Barack Obama truly believes that was he is doing is transformative. He said so himself to DailyKos crowd in "Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party [6]" :

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more "centrist." In fact, I think the whole "centrist" versus "liberal" labels that continue to characterize the debate within the Democratic Party misses the mark. Too often, the "centrist" label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education and tackling poverty, I don't think Democrats have been bold enough. But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don't work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of "framing," although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It's a matter of actually having faith in the American people's ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.

This may be, by the way, the post that alienated the Obama campaign from not just the netroots crowd but the whole progressive blogosphere.

Obama is not out to get the enemy. He is out to build bridges, heal old wounds. Barack's campaign is all about bringing all peoples into the democratic process by putting politics back on the kitchen table by calling it Hope.

No matter the race or ethnicity.

No matter the religion or political ideology.

Which is why his security detail (or lack thereof) is so fascinating. You just get there's something different about his negritude, something we really have not seen in this country's mainstream politics and culture.

Obama feels like a new kind of blackness, a new kind of America. Actually, Barack is bringing the accent back into the word and turning this into another country of América.

Obama's America is transnational, transcultural, miscegenated, mullatoid. It is all those things individually and together. It is an America that is not willing to give up it many identities in order to fit some old dream mold.

That's what's so refreshing about his uppitiness ... and his que será, será attidude about his security detail.

He truly believes there's enough people out there willing to make sure he beats all the odds.

He truly believes there's a family of Americans out there willing to protect him.

I hope he's right.