'Mutt' Prez Will Move US Beyond Equality

Our enemies love using US racial divisions as a stick to beat Americans with, a stick “we’ve handed them over and over again,” writes Gregory Rodriguez in the Los Angeles Times. Now, Barack Obama gives us a crucial symbol of progress—and it won’t be because Obama’s black, but because, in his words, he’s “a mutt.”

Obama’s election allows the US to do more than simply gloat about “treating our minorities better than you treat yours.” It’s a sign the melting pot, which thanks to racism and anti-miscegenation laws used to melt only whites, now blends colors, too. “If he chooses to highlight his mixed background, he could truly vanquish our old ideas of racial purity,” Rodriguez writes. “Out of many, one. Really.” (More Barack Obama stories.)