By Stacey Patton and Leslie Wilson:

A funny thing happened on the way to the presidential election: America learned it was racist, and then denied it by voting for Barack Obama to make him the nation’s first president of color. It is important to repeat the statement, “first president of color,” as Obama is biracial, not simply black.

According to the traditional news media, the field was wide open. Although there were clear favorites, the want-to-be candidates offered a notion of American diversity. The Democrats gave America a scare by offering a white northerner, a white southerner, a white woman, a Latino male and a biracial male as its chief candidates.

The woman from New York was a popular choice. Her husband, already the president, was an expert in racial affairs.  In 1998, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison  dubbed former President Bill Clinton, the “first black president.” Despite Clinton’s lack of the appropriate melanin count, Morrison wrote that he displayed “almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonalds-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.”

Clinton embraced his honorary title and the majority of African Americans showed him love. Early on, it seemed that blacks were overwhelmingly going to throw their support behind his wife in her bid for the presidency. After all, the Clintons were “family.”

On the other side, lacking a clear favorite, the Republicans, had a series of white males seeking the presidency, separated only by religious affiliation. It seemed inevitable that either a person of color or a woman might gain a nomination to challenge a WASP white male.

Here is where the funny thing happened: The media, the political system, and the public began to see shades of black.  Television news, print media, and the blogosphere started to debate whether a woman, Catholic, Mormon, Evangelical or person of color could be elected president of the United States. The same Internet that funded Obama’s candidacy was filled with erroneous information about each candidate. However, Barack Obama’s identity became the main topic of conversation.  It was claimed that he was an Arab, a Muslim, a terrorist, and a person who was sworn into the Senate with his hand on the Koran.  Jewish websites claimed that Obama was anti-Israel and that he would support another Holocaust. Similar comments were levied at Mitt Romney, the Mormon candidate, suggesting that he was a polygamist and un-American.

In order to secure the nomination, each Democratic candidate attacked the other, trying not to use race or gender. “Experience,” or the lack of it, was a replacement for race. Neither women nor minorities could counter the experience needed to be president; only a white male could fulfill that image. When Mrs. Clinton insisted that she was ready to answer the phone at 3 a.m., she instantly became a male.

The Republicans hid behind the flag, making patriotism their chief tactic. In the closing moments of that contest, John McCain’s patriotism won the day. However, as the field narrowed, race became the central issue. It started with the Democrats and not the Republicans. Bill Clinton, for example, suggested that Obama was not black enough. In an indirect attack on Obama’s theme of “hope”, Hillary Clinton, on the King Holiday, stressed that Dr. King’s dreams were made realities by Lyndon Johnson.

The media began to circulate these ideas. Typical conversations of the men and women on the street questioned factual information that was readily available to counter these inaccuracies. Instead, the fictions became the acceptable answers.

The Republicans seized those Democratic slogans and gave them new life.  McCain attacked Obama’s experience, then questioned his associations, suggesting that he was not what he seemed to be. Pictures of Obama in non-western dress, his education in Asian schools and his mother’s selection of non-white and non-American men for husbands were used to suggest that Obama was an imposter. Then Barack Obama’s personal and professional connections were attacked.

First were his religious connections to the spitfire minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who cussed at America from behind the pulpit.  Next were the selections on his iPod and his approval of the rapper Ludacris, and finally, the race and class-based comedy of long-time friend actor/comedian Bernie Mac. Obama’s work as a community organizer, his community service, and his work with election groups were hinted at as further proof of his questionable past.

John McCain’s actions on the debate stage and at rallies renewed the ideas of race. McCain’s blatant disrespect of Obama during the first presidential debate held at “Ole Miss” brought the ghosts of old southern genteel racism back to life on an international stage. It was he who broke the bonds of civility and slapped the race card onto the table.  Hard. Beyond partisan preferences, pundit propaganda and the posturing that typically color such face-offs, it was impossible to ignore the pure spite that McCain showed his opponent. It was chillingly reminiscent of the blatant disdain associated with attitudes of white superiority and entitlement.

The “that one” comment during the second debate, and the white woman who called Obama an “Arab” when she clearly wanted to use the N-word, are also lasting images of the near-death of racism.

When Obama won, media pundits declared that an ugly chapter in American racial history had been closed and that we had instantly become a post-racial society. Some folks claim that when they look at Obama, they don’t see a black man. He does not register as an African American on the cultural and identity meter because he does not have four centuries of racial baggage coded in his DNA, spirit, or social memory. Instead he is being described as a kind of magical, mystical political figure seen as having the power to elevate our nation so that it can ignore the discomfort of dealing with the ugly history of slavery, segregation and injustice, and the very real vestiges that remain.

Obama and his accomplishments are being viewed as a kind of magic wand that can erase centuries of oppression, damage and dysfunction.  There is a combination of expectation and fantasy his presence symbolizes: that we have transcended racism, that it is no longer an issue. That we can gloss over our problems because we have achieved progress.

But Obama is a new kind of African American produced by the recent African Diaspora that even some blacks were slow to fully accept. The good thing is that both whites of all generations and young blacks, without the memory and wisdom of their parents and grandparents, enthusiastically embrace him.

A nation tried to separate race from power and instead argued it was successful.  Yes, whites made Obama president, but that is not the entire story. According to the national exit polls taken by CNN, the majority of the white electorate, 55% did not vote for Obama. Among working-class whites, 51% did not vote for Obama and 56% of whites earning more than $50,000 per year voted for McCain and 53% of senior citizens supported McCain. Only the educated middle class and 66% of young voters came out for Obama’s candidacy without regard to race. Obama won 67% of the Latino vote and 62% of the Asian vote.  Ninety-five percent of blacks, of all classes, voted for Obama, and race played a role in that decision.

So is racism dead in America?  Not hardly, but it was a good bluff!

Stacey Patton is a Senior Editor for TheDefendersOnline and Leslie Wilson is a professor of American and African-American History at Montclair State University.