Race Unresolved

Hillary Clinton's symbolic victory in West Virginia is more than just an effort to breathe life into a mortally wounded campaign. It presents in a sharper focus than any other primary how race continues to shape American politics. In West Virginia, the polls tell us, a higher percentage of voters said race played a role in their balloting than in any other primary state.

That Hillary Clinton must play to this audience is sad. If the actual percentage of Americans who won't vote for a black presidential candidate is at 20%, the nation has an awful lot of work to do. These numbers imply a blindness that some optimists thought was left behind in the last century. Black America has always known better. It wouldn't matter who the black candidate was, or is. Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Barack Obama, liberal, conservative, it really makes no difference.

To be clear, most white Americans don't feel this way. If 20% do, then 80% don't, and that ought to be heartening except that 20% can lose you an election. Hillary Clinton knows this. She wants to win the nomination so badly she's willing to throw away her legacy and that of her husband to pander to that minority. And still, the ultimate prize eludes her grasp, snatched away by a black man.

Again, there ought to be some nuance to any analysis of this problem. There are large segments of the white working class that don't buy into racism on any level. Over the years they've found common cause with their black counterparts on a number of issues. One hopes their number is growing.

Yet the inability of some to put down racism is not Barack Obama's problem with the white working class.

It's America's problem with race.