This question about Barack Obama seems to be raised from both the right and the left, so let's apply a some simple tests, all of which assume he is unknown to the people observing him:
In the 1950s, if he and his wife and children had moved into a white neighborhood, would it have sparked white flight?
If he tried to hail a cab downtown, would the driver pass him by?
On his first day at Harvard Law School, did some of the other students assume he was there only because of affirmative action?
If he put on a hooded sweatshirt (with the hood up), and walked into a convenience store, would the store clerk reach for the alarm button?
In a room where no one knows him, would people be surprised by what he sounds like when he opens his mouth and talks?
If you saw him in an office setting talking with a white man, both of them in suits, would you assume the white man was in charge?
If he were running down the street in an exclusive white neighborhood, would the police be likely to stop and question him?
If he were driving in an exclusive white suburb of Los Angeles, would the detective, Mark Fuhrman (of OJ Simpson trial infamy), pull him over because he didn't belong there?
and the final test:
If he were female, would Imus refer to him as a "nappy-headed 'ho"?
My guess is the answer is yes to all the test questions (with the possible exception of the last one, because his hair is too short!).
In this primary, I'm a fence-sitter for one of the few times in my life. I prefer Edwards because he expresses my most important beliefs, but I think Obama is terrific also and would be delighted with either one as my president. (My husband sent money to Obama, and I sent money to Edwards). And we should all remember that any of our Democratic candidates are spectacularly better than all of the Republican candidates. But the issue of Obama being "Black enough" needs to be dispensed with. A person who "looks" Black is treated as Black in his life and therefore, no matter how he's raised, has experienced being judged (to misquote Martin Luther King) not by the content of his character but by the color of his skin.