a central point in examining his popularity, because this is part of the reason why the American people have gravitated toward him. 
  
His public posture is that he is attractive personally, being even charismatic and telegenic, but he has also tentatively laid out some tantalizing aspects of his ideological position. He has said that he understands that Americans want a “new kind of leadership” but without quite defining it, we have every reason to know what he means by that. Is this his way of suggesting that he is a post-racial candidate?
  
His novelty has meant that he presents a view of racial diversity that is attractive to Americans, since it is not a threatening variety. That variety of diversity has come with a compensatory edge, where Blacks’ demands over a past of slavery and post-slavery racism have been rejected by the Supreme Court, by the states of California, Washington, Texas, Florida and, more recently, Michigan and a large majority of Whites. 
  
But that kind of diversity is based on the simple proposition of the positive desire to include all people of whatever stripe in the American experiment and is far more acceptable as the new definition of affirmative action and, therefore, of the project of racial amelioration. The latter is where Barack Obama wins his appeal from America. This is suggested by his parental background and his upbringing and now become an out-front aspect of his persona.
  
Black people do not live in a post-racial America. They live in the prism of police shootings in New York and Atlanta; of rabid incarceration; of employment stagnation; of the continued lack of capital; of record foreclosures and other manifestations that America is still sensitive to who they are. 
  
So, why shouldn’t Blacks, even Black leaders, be a little suspicious of the maddening rush to Obama by the media that, at the same time, turns the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy into a non-threatening pose of the dreamer, championing the new concept of diversity, while they vilify his followers who still act in the system-challenging mode of his true legacy?  
  
Because some have said that the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Harry Belafonte and others have suggested that Barack cannot be just accepted at face value and that his evolution should be watched with caution, they have been regarded as jealous.  But it is the responsibility of Black leadership to vet anyone who presents himself or herself to the Black community to be supported for president.  
  
Ask Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). In the 2000 election cycle, he was added to the ticket of Al Gore for vice president, but he had taken a negative posture toward affirmative action, and Black leaders took him to the woodshed until he straightened up.
  
They also have another reason to be cautious. They have some options and these options should be played effectively.  If the Rev. Sharpton runs, Blacks will have a direct and powerful voice in the presidential election representing issues important to Blacks that cannot be ignored. 
  
Already, one unnamed analyst reported in a major newspaper has said that Barack faces the danger that a Sharpton candidacy will force him to address “awkward civil rights issues such as police brutality and racial profiling that he tends to steer clear of.”
  
Then, former Sen. John Edwards launched his presidential campaign from the Ninth Ward in Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, pledging to set up his headquarters there. This is an important commitment that cannot be pushed aside, given the importance of the issues that underlay the fight for the right of Black people to return to home and culture and to rebuild and retain their influence in the political system. 
  
Last but not least, Hilary Clinton is married to Bill Clinton, an 800-pound guerilla who is supposed to be the “first Black President” and who has retained a lasting influence within the Black community, not only among his former staffers, but with their extended contacts as well. Given these real, live options, why jump to the untested Barack?  This is not just jealousy.
  
So, Barack Obama should run, but he should also be held up to the light of accountability as to the degree he wishes to represent issues needed from the political system by the Black community. If he truly does not want to be held accountable on that score, he should be judged in that light, but, if he does, then he should really run and perhaps try to use his campaign to bring the rest of America along. 
  
He can’t win that way, you say. Then, of what value is a Black president of the United States?

Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, director of the African American Institute and professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland at College Park. His latest books are “White Nationalism, Black Interests” (Wayne State University Press) and “Freedom Is Not Enough” (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers).