When the storm hit

You watch as the clouds roll in, big, dark, ominous. You know that you're in an exposed place, vulnerable, and the full force of the storm will hit you.

You know there is nothing you can do but wait for the fury to envelop you, to hang on to anything you can, a tree, your wife, anything that will keep you from being blown off the ground and tossed like a woodchip through the air.

Suddenly it's on you and you take the full brunt, all the energy that has been gathering and building. It is just what everyone predicted, and you must ride it out however you can. Within a few hours it's over. But the storm has left massive damage, not only to you but to everyone around you.

Imagine you're John McCain and that storm was last Tuesday. If there is anything left to pick up, I hope you won't need FEMA to help.

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While Barack Obama might be the first African American to attain the job of President of the United States, portrayals of black presidents have been around for a long time, going back at least to The Man, starring James Earl Jones as Douglas Dillman. In the movie Dillman becomes President through a complicated set of coincidences with the line of succession to the presidency. In 1972, when the movie was produced, that would have been the only way a black man would have gotten the job.

More recently we had Morgan Freeman, who has played other roles not traditionally seen as black--Little John in Robin Hood comes to mind--as the president in the 1998 movie Deep Impact.

Dennis Haysbert, tall and distinguished, was President David Palmer for several years in the series 24. Haysbert went on to represent Allstate Insurance in commercials and to the lead in the series, The Unit. Haysbert has said publicly that he believes his portrayal helped Barack Obama win the nomination.

I believe Haysbert in a larger sense, that these roles have helped put in the public mind the notion of a black man as president wouldn't be all that unusual.

I also believe that having black people more active in television and movies has placed them in the public consciousness, a place where they were invisible until the late 1960s. In response to the Civil Rights movement producers put more African Americans in movies and TV. The generation my son represents grew up seeing black people on TV every day. They weren't as exotic as they seemed to us Baby Boomers who grew up in a whites-only television environment.

Finally, I found it interesting that the latest Time has a front cover with Obama, and a back cover with Tiger Woods. Both men are superstars in venues formerly closed to people of color, both men are mixed race. Could this juxtaposition have been a coincidence? Hmmm.