Race in the Race

I heard some very interesting perspectives that a show on CNN hosted by Campbell Brown called Race in Race, last night proposed. With 4 panelists, including a black (Republican) woman and a black man(Roland Martin), they discussed racism in this campaign. They discussed a book Political Brain that discusses how racism is most accurately found in the subconscious which ultimately will affect how voters perform. They talked about the difference between "gut level" polling results with the actual physical action of voting, determining that polling vs. the vote are 2 different things. ( Martin did mention twice that blacks in the past 3 presidential elections predominantly voted democrat).
The concept of racial identity was touched on and how Obama has talked about why he refers to himself as African-American and not specifically bi-racial. In an earlier interview he explained African American refers to a hybrid of African. He explains race has been a tool used against him and for him. An article by James Burnett talks about "Obama is White" by discussing, from a black perspective, how if he's black, then's he's white also...he argues he should be referred to as bi-racial.
The tool of race bating is also discussed and how the McCain campaign is "fostering an atmosphere of racial hostility". They intentionally use Obama's middle name"Hussein" to use fear that he's a terrorist in disguise. Martin argues that Palin's deliberate use of "hockey mom and joe 6-pack" is not talking to a black audience but the white population. This is where the republican began to come out of the black panelist because she argued that she felt like that is just a way of continuing to pigeon hole blacks and that she felt included in this audience. She talked about the necessity for this election and beyond Nov.2 to raise the relevance of race discusssions, specifically because of all the issues that this campaign has brought up.
There was hopeful discussion that the concept of change could really be internalized and that Obama is really the man who can do it.