On Nov. 4, 2008, Americans made history by electing a black president – a real black president, not just an actor playing one. (Sorry, Morgan Freeman. You don’t count.) What amazed me the day after was the media response – specifically, that all the headlines I came across had the same typo. They all said that the U.S. had elected its first “African-American” president. Of course, what they meant to say was “Half-rican American.”

That’s right, folks – Obama is only half black. His white mother was the only thing that allowed him to escape the bonds of the Kansas slave trade and move on to Harvard Law, the Senate and the U.S. presidency. All this isn’t to say, though, that the election of Obama hasn’t been a racial breakthrough. He’s still infinitely more black than the previous 43 presidents combined. (Unless you agree with John McGlaughlin that Warren G. Harding was “a negro.”)

On second thought, maybe there wasn’t a typo in all those headlines. Maybe Obama really is black. This would seem to mean that if you’re half-black, you “round up” to black. But Obama is also half-white; so why doesn’t he round up to white as well? The only logical conclusion is that fractions are racist.

Oh, fractions… what did white people ever do to you?

If I’m right, and Obama isn’t really black, does that mean that Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream is still unfulfilled? I suppose so. Obama’s victory has done nothing to expand the rights of blacks; the last time that happened was in 1972, when Shirley Chisholm’s presidential run overturned the 1937 Negroes Can’t Run For President Act. Dr. King isn’t the only civil rights leader whose dream remains deferred; there’s also Dr. Ma Tan Lu Ta Qing, the tireless crusader for Asian-American rights, who found instant stardom after delivering his “i HaZ aN aZn DrEaM” speech. If there is one activist who would be proudest of Obama’s win, it would have to be Dr. King’s biracial stepbrother Carl, who shook things up when he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and proclaimed to the world, “I have half a dream.”

So, perhaps we don’t yet have an undeniably black president. But don’t let that get you down. After all, what happens to a dream half-deferred? Does it partially dry up, like a raisin on a partly cloudy day? Does it fester like a mild sore… and then jog? Or maybe it just sags… like a moderately heavy load.

No, my friends. It explodes.

And it will be the biggest half-explosion that you ever did see – one big enough to propel the civil rights movement farther than you ever imagined. And I can guarantee you that one day, we will reach the promised land. We will elect a president who is 100 percent black. Given the current trends, it might happen as early as the election of 2224.

Since the events of Nov. 4, it’s been hard to argue that America is an intolerant nation. We’ve shown the world that we have the wisdom and understanding to put a black man in the White House… as long as he doesn’t look that black. If it can happen to a (H)A(l)frican-American, then it can happen to any minority.

Unless they’re a Muslim or an atheist. Then they’re screwed.