Column: Obama comes as a ray of hope

I never thought an African-American would one day be in the White House - that is, until Sen. Barack Obama came along.

Compared to his competitors, Obama has a number of advantages. Unlike Sen. John McCain, he is not an advocate of military solutions and staying the course in Iraq, even if it takes another 100 years. Unlike Sen. Hillary Clinton, he was never on the board of Wal-Mart.

If elected, Clinton will also be breaking ground as the first woman president, something her supporters highlight. For that matter, Margaret Thatcher preceded her by two decades in becoming the first woman prime minister of U.K. And to her credit, Thatcher's main achievements were inaugurating neoliberal policies along with Ronald Reagan and driving Great Britain into the Falkland Islands War.

We have had both women and people of color as heads of state - women as political leaders in both the developed as well as the developing world and people of color as leaders in the developing world - but what we have not had is a person of color heading a country in the developed world.

Though he has not ducked sniper fire in Bosnia, Obama has a good track record and the political will to divert the U.S. from its excessive military adventurism and reorient it toward a development agenda.

But I root for Obama for another reason: his ability to reach out to people beyond the racial faultlines left by America's legacy of slavery.

Racial justice is long overdue in the U.S. And if any change has occurred since the Brown versus Board of Education decision of 1954, it is that institutional racism has replaced everyday, in-your-face racism. Despite desegregation and official policies against overt racism, the achievement gap between people of color, particularly African-Americans, and the rest of society continues to rise.

And for all the talk about affirmative action and positive discrimination emanating from the establishment, people of color still rank below whites on a whole range of parameters, including socioeconomic status and educational achievement.

It is at such a juncture that Obama comes as a ray of hope. I, for one, believe that making Obama president is not going to end racism. Racial discrimination is so entrenched in the system that it will take more than one president to end it.

Obama is no shortcut to racial justice, and having him in the White House is no indication that racism is passé. On the other hand, Obama cannot short circuit the long-drawn process of racial healing that may prolong over many generations.

But Obama is a good point to start addressing the issue of race and how to undo its disastrous effects. Moreover, it will give hope to a people who have been brutalized by centuries of oppression and reinstate their belief in democratic means to achieve justice.

Personally, I pick bones with Obama on one major issue - his rather naive assessment of the

situation in the Middle East and his rebuking of radical Islam as being responsible for the strife in that region.

Radical Islam needs to be criticized, but pegging the entire blame on it absolves U.S. foreign policy and America's unqualified support to Israel of their disastrous role in turning the Middle East into a tinderbox.

Maybe Obama is saying what people have been accustomed to hear. After all, every politician needs to become a demagogue at some point. But I still can't condone Obama's pandering to the galleries and his reluctance to acknowledge America's deep involvement in the Middle East.

On this one, I only hope good sense prevails and Obama comes into his own for the long-term welfare of Americans and everyone else in the Middle East.

Even with this flaw, Obama is the man to go for. There is neither an ideal situation nor an impeccable person. Obama may not turn things around and cause a miracle, but one thing is for sure: He is not going to push the country into another unnecessary war.

Santhosh Chandrashekar is a graduate student at the Communication and Journalism Department.