Race has been in the room since the beginning. It was there in Philadelphia, where the Founding Fathers debated slavery in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It is there now, two centuries later, still playing a central if sometimes hidden role in politics.

But in the election of 2008, the first in which a black person stands a reasonable chance of becoming president, the role of race will be far from hidden.

In ways large and small, the weeks and months ahead will test just how far we've come as a nation.

For some individuals, the answer will be not very far at all. In Marietta, for example, a tavern owner is proudly selling T-shirts depicting Barack Obama as a monkey holding a banana. Naturally, he professes to see nothing racist in the image.

Likewise, a few months ago a minor Republican Party official here in Georgia sent a mass e-mail to fellow party members and others featuring Photoshopped images of top Democrats.

In one, a bawling Chelsea Clinton is seen holding a T-shirt proclaiming "My mom is getting her ass kicked by a Negro," as if there were some special shame in that.

In the second, Bill and Hillary are seen standing near a plantation house with a black-faced lawn jockey. The face on the lawn jockey is that of Obama.

Later, the official sent out an e-mail to apologize "if this offended anyone," explaining that she had only forwarded an e-mail that she herself had received from many others.

"Please be assured that the 25 longtime conservative Republicans who have forwarded this to me are not at all racists," she wrote.

No. Not at all. Why would anybody think that?

But you know what? Ugly as it might get, let's draw this poison out. Let's drag it into the open, where it can stand as concrete refutation of the claim that racism doesn't really exist anymore. It remains real, it retains the power to warp lives and futures and souls, and you can see its handiwork throughout our society.

However, while we acknowledge that racial bias remains a powerful subcurrent in all aspects of American life, it's also important not to confuse that subcurrent with the mainstream. The country is changing quickly, and for the better, and there is no stronger evidence of that transformation than Obama himself.

Early in the primary process, a lot of African-American voters and leaders were wary of Obama's candidacy. They were not ready to believe that their fellow Americans might support a black candidate; they feared that his rejection would be their rejection as well.

So when Obama started surprising people with victories in Iowa and other states, some of his fellow black Americans were most surprised of all. That initial wariness has since been replaced by joy, with black voters turning out in record numbers for Obama.

However, that enthusiasm is about more than a chance for black Americans to vote for "one of their own." This time, black Americans seem motivated to vote as much out of excitement about this country as about the candidate. They seem thrilled that the secret, often unspoken hopes they have nurtured for America and their place in it might actually come true someday, and that "someday" could even be today. They're voting not just for Obama, but for America.

Seeing that hope realized does not, in the end, require that Barack Obama win the election. He may very well lose, just as fellow Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore lost before him for reasons other than their race. What matters will be how the campaign is run.

It would be a vast exaggeration to refer to the Republican Party as racist. However, it has certainly been willing to play on racial fear and resentment for political advantage, pushing that message just hard enough to have an effect without being obvious.

Against Obama, that will be a tricky thing to modulate. As we've seen, his very presence in the race will provoke some to excess, and if the GOP pushes things too far, or if it tolerates the worst instincts of those on its fringe, it risks a powerful backlash in Obama's favor.

Because we're just not that country anymore.

> Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His column runs Monday and Thursday.

jbookman@ajc.com