I am going to afford you the courtesy of not descending into ad hominem attacks. I am questioning the wisdom of trying to have a conversation with someone whose idea of civilized conversation is calling me an asshole, but I am willing to give it a go.

First of all, I never assumed the worst of you. I assumed that your experience is not the same as mine and tried to explain to you how we have different perspectives on this election and life in general because we are not the same race.

You said to me "Obama has lived in the black world, married and been friends with and lived in the community of people you would consider "black like me." So I don't know what your problem is. Really, it's like all you care about is his DNA and family tree, not what his understanding is, or what his identity means to most people, and to history." You say "I am befuddled by your insistence on holding these distinctions as if they were the most important thing in the world." These accusations give me the impression that you think this difference is insignificant. His family tree is precisely what differentiates us. It is not some technicality. If you think that I was implying that you were being malicious or racist for not acknowledging that it is a huge deal, then you misunderstood what I was saying. Saying that you are "befuddled" by my seeing this distinction as something important devalues the sentiment.

But you seem like you're unwilling to admit something that is very obvious: That Obama's presidency removes a major obstacle to people who are more like you achieving higher office. It also means that children will grow up thinking there is nothing strange or unlikely about such anachievement.

The idea that Obama's victory would enable someone like me to be president is wishful thinking. I think there is a constellation of reasons that Obama won: he had a much better campaign than his competition in the primary, Hillary Clinton successfully persuaded her supporters to vote for Obama, John McCain insulted Clinton supporters by thinking Sarah Palin would be a stand in for Hillary, Palin was a disaster, Palin turned off the mainstream, the economy tanked, and McCain acted like a crazy person, and the McCain campaign went off the rails. Black voters came out in full force for Obama and there can be no doubt that their concentration in the south helped him immensely. But you forget that black people who have lineage like mine have run for president before and failed miserably. Al Sharpton was never a serious candidate, but Jesse Jackson was a credible voice and he was never a contender. And, though I am befuddled by the enthusiasm for Obama, I cannot deny that he inspired people to come out in full force for him. I think he had a lot of help from the media who could not seem to think of a bad thing to say about him.

Regarding the t-shirt, you are assuming that it would offend a large portion of our population. I think that that is naive. How many states incorporate the Confederate battle flag in their state flags? How many times have people tried to change that only to be met with fierce resistance? Posting it on the internet would have been stupid because this guy had no problem wearing it in public, so putting it on the internet would not upset him. You say that you would have pity for the young man who wore that shirt. It is easier for you to have that sort of emotional distance. That shirt was quite hurtful to me. I am not one to cry, but thinking about it makes my eyes well up. It is a reminder that someone I would have loved as family member had I been alive to know them was degraded that way. Again, I would not expect the reality of that to resonate with you the same way it resonates with me. There is nothing wrong with that.

I never accused you of throwing slavery in my face. I am sorry if you thought I was. I said that t-shirts like the one discussed above is an example of how people can throw it in my face. It is a humiliating truth that my family was once owned like property and worked like a mule or an ox on someone's land. I also said that my face and my straight hair is a reminder of a legacy of violence perpetuated against black people like me. I believe I said my own face throws slavery in my face. I did not say that you were throwing slavery in my face.