The Washington Post has a frontpager on the problem Obama may have with the black vote (a growing source of chatter on the blogs for the last week*).

What I find most striking about the piece is how cavalierly and matter-of-factly everyone talks about black authenticity being defined by leftwing politics and an antipathy to success in mainstream elite circles (he went to Harvard — shudder — and taught at the University of Chicago — for shame!). It’s by no means the central point of the article which, in a way, makes it all the more shocking and depressing. It’s simply assumed by all that this is as it should be. Why on earth so many people aren’t offended by the veiled suggestion that academic success is a sign of black inauthenticity is beyond me.

The other interesting point to be made is what it says about “white” America that he’s so popular. I think the narrative about America being too racist for black politicians to succeed is little more than a chestnut at this point. White Americans desperately want black Americans to succeed. This goes for much of the Republican Party as well. Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice and now Michael Steele have enormous fan bases out there (though Powell’s reputation took a beating from his troubles in the Administration). What makes a hash of all this is precisely the attitude on display from some of the people quoted in that Washington Post piece. The black left — and, let’s be honest, a big chunk of the black base — thinks that it gets to define who is black by applying an ideological litmus test. Black conservatives “don’t count” as blacks according the Sharptons and Jacksons. The result is that white conservatives or Republicans who actually support black conservatives or Republicans are still “racist” because they don’t support “real” blacks. In effect, conservatives are racist if they don’t support liberal and leftwing black people.

That act’s getting tired, but it’s hardly exhausted yet. What will be fascinating is to see whether white liberals will let themselves be bullied into buying the Obama’s-not-really-black argument (sure to be egged on by Hillary Clinton) in the months ahead.

* Note: I am trying to avoid using the grating word “meme.”