Once you’ve heard the truth, everything else is just cheap whiskey... – R. Lee Ermey, Switchback (1997)

In the first months after Barack Hussein Obama announced that he was running for president, whispers began to be heard that he might not be Black enough to appeal to rank-and-file Black voters. This had more to do with his standoffish approach to “Black issues” than with the color of his skin.

Yet, since his emergence as the “presumptive” nominee of the Democratic Party, similar whispers are being heard. But they have as much to do with his bi-racial heritage as his lukewarm approach to things that are important to the Black community.

This is currently being exacerbated by a 60-second Obama TV piece in which he hails his half-white heritage with photos of his white mother and white grandmother – but no mention and no photo of his Black father. Could this hurt him with Blacks? Hmmm...

In essence, it appears his strategy is to play up the fact that he is half-white – downplaying the fact that his father is Black – to appeal to working-class whites he failed to win in several primaries. Some even feel that is why he publicly dissed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who is strongly pro-Black.

Such sentiments appear very germane in the wake of Obama’s poor showing among white voters in Pennsylvania and overwhelming losses to Hillary Clinton in rural white West Virginia and Kentucky. For example, Hillary told USA Today, “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on. There’s a pattern emerging here.”

She added fuel to the fire by paraphrasing an Associated Press story on Indiana and North Caroline exit polls “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

Despite the fact that some prominent white Democrats concerned with uniting the party say Hillary’s comments as “driving a racial wedge” in the party, it clearly pointed out that, indeed, Obama’s race is the most important issue in his bid for the White House in 2008. Not the economy. Not gas prices. Not Iraq. Race.

So the operative questions become: How will Black voters feel if Obama makes a full frontal effort to woo downscale whites who are suspicious of him? Could it cost him some of the overwhelming Black support he received? To defeat John McCain in the general election, he desperately needs almost the entire Black vote.

Black people have been waiting for years for a legitimate Black presidential candidate. Many of us felt we had one in the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the 1980s and, to a lesser extent, in 2004, when the Rev. Al Sharpton made us proud by winning every televised debate.

But like it or not, many of us are a bit leery of Obama’s mulatto heritage. He is not pure Black, despite being married to a Black woman and having to Black daughters. His mixed-race background – white mother and Black father – gives us some pause.

Is this fair? Perhaps not. But it is what it is. Obama walks a very thin line between trying to appeal to white voters he needs and Black voters who want a strong Black man or woman to champion our concerns and fight for our issues on the national stage.

There’s no question Obama is taking the Black cote for granted, which is his right. Jesse and Rev. Al – who are Black through-and-through – did the same thing. But that’s where they differ. And it’s where Obama being half-white may come into play.

In his efforts to win over working-class white voters and Jewish voters, will Obama’s mulatto heritage color his commitment to the needs of Black people? Will he give short shrift to issues such as job and housing discrimination, police brutality and institutional racism that have plagued Blacks for countless decades? To date, his colorless campaign has done just that, which appeases guilt-ridden white people.

Earlier this year, Bill Maxwell – a Black columnist with the St. Petersburg Times (Fla.) – put things in perspective. Headlines “An ‘Honorary White Man,’” he began “...his [Obama’s] overnight rise to national prominence has everything to do with race, that many whites will vote for him because he doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable...

“Obama is what many Blacks (and some whites) pejoratively refer to as ‘an honorary white man’ who can soothe white people. In the parlance of race studies, he is a ‘good Black,’ rather than a ‘bad Black.’”

I totally agree with Maxwell’s logic. Thus far, Obama – unlike Colin Powell, a military man for whom I have great admiration – hasn’t dealt with this part of his appeal to whites. And neither Powell nor Obama is ideologically Black.

Along with millions of others, I want a Black presidential candidate who will stand up for our issues. A Black presidential candidate who lets white voters know he or she is Black and proud. A Black presidential candidate who will explain to white voters why racial issues are our chief concerns.

So what can the half-white Obama do to demonstrate his commitment to Black people and Black voters? Simple: Make it clear that he cares about what we care about, that he is more than a tall, clean shaven, telegenic young man in brown skin, with a Kenya-born Black father and a Kansas-born white mother. That he is more Black than white.