In case anybody missed it, this Friday we got a peep at a new paradigm of leadership in this country. Govenor Bill Richardson of New Mexico endorsed Senator Barack Obama of Illinois for President of the United States of America. 
Let me say this again but differently, a Mexican American governor endorsed a mixed-race Black American senator for President of the United States of America and it is still making headlines.  And here’s something extra; not a single white person had to stand up there with them to make the occasion credible or important.  What’s more, English wasn’t the only language being spoken on stage.  Is this what Dr. King was talking about when he said he had seen the Promised Land? 
Would I go too far in saying that mainstream politics took a small, but important step away from normatively white leadership when these two men took the stage?  This is not to say that people of color haven’t stood in political alliance with one another in the past; that would be a perfect lie.  But to see an endorsement of one’s candidacy at the highest echelon of American politics occur between a brown endorser and a black endorsee had me at the edge of my seat with my hands clapping.
One further note of appreciation, Richardson spoke plainly about how as a Hispanic American he was particularly touched by Obama’s words earlier in the week in what is now being called “the race speech.”  To say that he was moved in a particular way having to do with his racial identity was an affirmation to all of us who are sick of the shallowness, and often times, the insincerity, of colorblind ideology.  For the colorblind ideologue, the assertion that race is meaningful to how one sees the world is an assault upon his very sensibilities, as is one’s public self-identification as a raced being.  With conviction in his heart, and a salt-and-pepper goatee on his brown face, Bill Richardson helped blaze a trail today for other mainstream politicos to express their identities as people of color, as well as their anti-white supremacist agendas.  With grave concern for the rising hate crimes against Latinos and the frenzied demonization of immigrants in general, Bill Richardson placed his arm around Obama and said to the crowd, and millions of Spanish-speakers listening in, “Este es un hombre que nos entiende y nos va a respetar.” (This is a man that understands us, and is going to respect us.)  By exercising political clout earned from years of executive and legislative experience to his country, Richardson deepened the layers of our multihued and multidimensional polity by aligning himself with the exciting and substantive leadership of Barack Obama.

Watching two people with such unique backgrounds be so emphatically and refreshingly American on their own terms left me with a reflection of myself I had not seen before in presidential politics. Both as a Chicana and as a mixed-race (half-white) American, I smiled with a special grin as I later appropriated Richardson’s words to sum up my own thoughts and feelings: “Finally, I’ve been recognized.”