“ If large numbers of white folks embraced Obama, but only because of his ability to “transcend race,” by which we really mean transcend his own blackness, doesn’t this suggest the ongoing power of whiteness and racist thinking? And isn’t the entire concept of “transcending blackness” in and of itself racist, insofar as it presumes, if only by implication, that there is something negative about blackness- something to be avoided, or if it can’t be avoided, at least finessed, worked around, or smoothed over?