The symbolic significance of Obama Barack’s nomination victory is not insubstantial. In a land where, not so long ago, having the slightest drop of “Negro blood” in your genetic inheritance was enough to bar you — legally and formally — from many jobs, educational opportunities, places of residence, medical care, full participation in society, etc. (and where these obstacles still persist, in practice if not in law, for many people), it is striking to see a man whose father was not only black but also a “full-blooded African” (cue the psychosexual “Mandingo” anxieties of generations of trembly white