Barack Obama's historical significance (even if he loses the election)

In the current Presidential campaign the McCain Republicans have accused Barack Obama of being naive, unpatriotic, confused, and out-of-touch with the crises our nation faces. A reading of his memoir, The Audacity of Hope, should easily dispel such characterizations as unfounded. Here is my "read" on Obama's book. What I see is an African-American journaling about his growing self-awareness and telling the story of his search for his roots. No black person in America can poke around in the records of black and white relations, or reflect on the history of racial discrimination without concluding that something went wrong. I find no judgmentalism in Obama. What I find is an American coming to terms with his color, telling the story of his developing self-awareness, searching for knowledge of his ethnic roots, not unlike the delight of John Kennedy returning to Ireland to see where his ancestors came from, or a friend of mine who returned from Italy exulting in finding some folk who remembered his grandfather, or the comfort the Hutterites enjoy living in thriving isolation in a commune near Cutbank, Montana. Then as the story moves into adulthood and Obama becomes involved in community action and state and national politics, as far as the reader can tell, his "color" fades into a non-issue. Obama is a striking example of something good, though long delayed, happening in America. Our history has been a struggle of trying to eradicate the malignant cancer--slavery--that threatened to bespoil the sincerity of our religious convictions and democratic principles, and put at risk the very life of our republican experiment. Lincoln's stand against the Confederates was based on the principle that if state secessions were allowed to occur with impunity, the future of the Union would be fatally damaged. The Civil War was major surgery on the problem, but the road back to health has been long and uncertain. We know the story of civil war, lynchings, hate crimes, and assassinations of prominent black leaders. But with all the setbacks, in our lifetime we have seen, the Supreme Court rule (post-Dred Scott) for peaceful assimilation of blacks (Brown vs. Board of Education), a Muslim preacher (Malcolm X) begin to reconcile with the Martin Luther King, Jr. non-violent approach, King himself honored for his "dream" of whites and blacks living together, a President from a southern state (Lyndon Johnson) leading the push for the landmark civil rights act. And now, Obama. I do not champion Obama just because he is running for President. I see him as the high point on a learning curve--a lesson America has been studying for two centuries. Take a look at the man. In his "A More Perfect Union" speech he showed blacks how to come to terms with their blackness without harboring unforgiveness toward unChristian whites, and without pandering to those (like Rev. Wright) who are still fighting the white victimizers. Obama is not only significant for the maturity that allows him to move on; he is remarkable for his Christian spirit and his vision of America and what we can make of our promising start 200-some short years ago.