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I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American.

If his presidency is to represent the full power of the idea that black Americans are just like everyone else - fully human and fully capable of intellect, courage and patriotism - then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and tumble of political criticism experienced by his predecessors.

Barack Obama happens to be the first African-American, and so criticism of him is and always was gonna be racism, and therefore not permitted.

To this day, the only argument against Obama that critics can seem to come up with involves admitting he's better than them - though they certainly season it with some racism. You know, he's that lucky black man who actually appeals to the populace. He's that elitist who got himself off food stamps and into Harvard.

Sadly, if President Obama is willing to ignore the pain of race-based discrimination and injustice so as to make whites comfortable - and this, after he has already been elected and the campaign is long over - then the likelihood he will ever speak the truth about these matters, let alone address them, shrinks to nearly zero.

The economical policies that are instigated really makes you think that the American government is a bunch of evil bastards. So just because you're black, you're still representing that government, and when Obama came into office he enacted the same policies that we would critique other presidents for.

If I have anything to say against Obama it's not because I'm a racist, it's because I don't like what he's doing as President and anybody should be able to feel that way, but what I find now is that if you say anything against him you're called a racist.

Obama has built his public image around his ability to bridge divisions - racial, ideological or generational. And that was his reputation, even at Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the 'Law Review.'

I'm not saying that President Obama should be exempt from criticism, nor do I believe it is some act of racial treason for a black person to hold our president accountable for his actions.

In one sense, Obama's point couldn't be clearer: race is a distraction from class-based inequities. And if we dismiss working-class resentment as camouflaged racism, we will continue to be distracted by the spectre of race.