Before tackling jobs, immigration or the plight of the uninsured, presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama understands he must first deal with the wearisome yet cutting question: "Is he black enough?"

And so, standing before several thousand journalists, he makes the first incision.

"I want to apologize for being a little late, but you guys keep asking whether I am black enough." Pause. Impish grin. "I figured I'd stroll in."

Laughter erupts in every corner. By invoking a stereotype of time-challenged black, before a crowd of cynical black journalists, a tough moment is defused.

Las Vegas is a city of $14 martinis, a place where hope is fleeting, artificial and generally relegated to the card tables. But listening to Obama's address to the National Association of Black Journalists, I felt hope more than any other emotion in his grasp for the nation's highest office.

The race for the Democratic nomination includes a woman, a black and a Hispanic — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. America doesn't get any more hopeful.

Obama's candidacy inspires hope not just about his chances to reach the White House but his chances of changing the world. His presence speaks to a world a lot browner than many have been willing to acknowledge. Obama challenges the political assembly of white, male entitlement, three things en route to becoming, to paraphrase former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, island specks in an ocean of color.

The challenge to Obama's racial identity is worthy of political-science and psychological studies. The Illinois senator is the progeny of a Kenyan father and a white mother. He is not the descendant of slaves like most U.S. blacks. The question of whether he fully understands, and is committed to addressing, the residual damage of slavery, segregation and lingering racism is legitimate.

His wife, Michelle, tried to put all this to rest during an interview with National Public Radio.

Obama's "leadership is going to be informed by his experiences, and the bottom line is Barack is a black man who's lived in the world, who's walked the streets and felt the discrimination that many people of color have felt ... and that's going to inform his decisions," she said.

Obama is like a Rorschach test. Depending on its viewpoint, the electorate sees a smart, decisive leader who, in the vein of a Colin Powell, mirrors our highest ideals about ourselves. Others see skin tone and a civil-rights pedigree that give them hope that we're finally ready to walk the walk of diversity.

A similar question was posed to another presidential aspirant, Hillary Clinton, who preceded Obama on the dais by a day. The senator from New York was asked if she was black enough to sustain the black support her husband enjoyed while in the White House, a golden period novelist Toni Morrison best summed up by naming Bill Clinton the first black president.

Clinton smartly approached the question as one not about the blood coursing in her veins but about her commitment to the American ideals of fairness and equality.

Obama just as smartly knows when the question comes his way it is infused with something else, a wellspring of hope deep in the black American psyche. Speaking of the "is he black enough" question, Obama said as much: "What it really does lay bare is a mentality that if you appeal to white folks, there must be something wrong."

Yes.

The question of whether a black who went to Harvard can keep it real is a test of the loyalty of everyone who has sweated blood and tears to attend good schools, find stable jobs and live in nice neighborhoods. Whether in the guise of schoolyard taunts equating smartness with acting white or in the form of "are you black enough" queries on the political hustings, the challenge is meant to hold fast those who might leave others behind. Blacks are far from monolithic but we regularly meet at the intersection of key issues such as equal opportunity, fairness and justice.

"Part of it has to do with fear," Obama told an audience growing quieter by the moment.

"We don't want to get too excited about the prospect (of a black president) because we don't want to be let down in the end," Obama said to a now-hushed room. "My attitude is let's try it. Let's take a chance and see what happens."

I wear my cynicism like a badge of honor — six years of watching a war from afar and a growing chasm between the haves and have-nots will do that to a person — but Obama's invitation to fear not for him, but rather hope with him, is one not to refuse.

Lynne K. Varner is a columnist for The Seattle Times. Reach her at lvarner@seattletimes.com.