Kenneth J. Cooper has an Op-Ed piece published over at www.blackpressusa.com (originally published in "The Wilmington Herald") that weighs in on some of the pundit chatter in the Black community about whether Senator Barack Obama is Black. Cooper asserts that, "debates about who is an 'authentic' Black rarely have any merit. This one is particularly mindless and pointless."

The Op-Ed piece merits thought. Though I do think the other side of the argument is salient in that it asks to what degree Senator Barack Obama identifies with the experiences of injustice for a great many Black people in American society. It's sort of a toss up. On the one hand, one can consider that Obama is well-equipped to be a unifying force in America. On the other hand, he could be perceived as a persona non grata in terms of rectifying systems of injustice to Black people.

Whichever side you find yourself on in this debate, Senator Barack Obama's Presidential bid will -- intentionally or not -- force a discussion about race in this presidential campaign. That discussion could be painful, hopeful or both. Personally, I would like to see it be both. We cannot resolve racial tension and systems of injustice without being honest. And when a social system is unjust, very often honest consideration about the injustice requires painful admissions, radical repentance and difficult sacrifices; especially if you are a beneficiary of the injustice.

Ultimately, how this debate moves forward this year will depend very much on how Senator Barack Obama frames the debate; that is, unless the black community has an equivalent of the Catholic League, at which point all bets are off and the debate will be just painful for all sides involved.

Here is an introductory clip from the Op-Ed:

Some African-Americans think Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., isn't really Black. Anyone with unimpaired vision can see that he is. A couple of contrarian commentators and other folks are trying to read him out of the race because of his mixed parentage and his childhood spent in distant places.

His father was a Black African, his mother a White American, and he lived in Hawaii and Indonesia with White grandparents as a child, his critics point out. All facts — but they don't erase his racial identity.

What troubles commentators Stanley Crouch, Debra J. Dickerson and others is that Obama may have had no ancestors who were slaves and didn't experience segregation or the fight for civil rights, according to a recent article in the New York Times.

Debates about who is an ''authentic'' Black rarely have any merit. This one is particularly mindless and pointless.