Don’t tell me this race isn’t about race.

As a native Southerner, I know what Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., implied when he recently called Sen. Barack Obama "uppity." And calling Obama “elitist,” as many in the McCain camp have, is just a more gentile way of calling him uppity.

This race stuff isn’t new.

Growing up in the South decades ago, we saw skin privilege in a crude way. And as far back as the Civil War, the belief in white supremacy spurred many poor, Southern farmers to fight against their interest on the side of rich plantation owners. The placing of skin color above economic interest has persisted.

Race was the blueprint for the Dixiecrats, Strom Thurmond, Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater. They used it to create the “Southern Strategy” employed by neoconservatives and neo-Confederates today.

It's why presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke in 1980 about “states’ rights” in Philadelphia, Miss. — the place where civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were killed and buried in the ’60s.

It’s why then-Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and campaign strategist Dick Morris ran in 1990 their notorious ad with the white hands of an actor crumpling up an application for a job that he lost because of “racial quotas.”

It’s what then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was conveying in 2002 when he told a Thurmond birthday gathering, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either.”

It’s what George Bush Sr. did with his “Willie Horton” ad in 1988.

And it’s what Bill Clinton did when he denounced Sister Souljah in 1992.

Today, there’s the raw, obvious racist punch in the face, such as the Georgia restaurant owner’s promotional T-shirts with Obama in the likeness of Curious George, the monkey. And there’s the racist caricature of Obama in the “waffles” boxes that were being peddled at the recent Family Values Summit.

Obama and his campaign are doubtlessly aware of the depths of racism.

That’s why he’s done all he could to play up, as he did at the Democratic Convention, the role his white mom and white grandparents played in raising him, and the “Kansas” — read “white” — values he grew up with.

That’s why he stresses how absent his black father was, since he understands that many in white America disparage the black community in general because many dads aren’t present.

That’s why he regularly scolds black audiences about “personal responsibility,” which is a race-coded appeal to whites, as if to say, ‘I’m not like them, I’m like you.”

This bending over backwards reached its most awkward moment at the Service Forum at Columbia University to mark Sept. 11. Obama was asked, “What would you do to counter the problem of soldiers not re-enlisting?” He replied, “I would increase the size of the military.” That is not a traditional view in the black community, and it is certainly not one that the Rev. Martin Luther King, who denounced U.S. militarism, would have uttered. Worse still, Obama went out of his way to mention that the “rural areas of the country have contributed more than their share to the war effort” and efforts must be made to recruit more people “from urban centers.” Not enough black soldiers are dying?

Some say, “If Obama would just stick to the issues, he can win.” Yet, if it were about issues, the contest wouldn’t even be close, given the high economic and social anxiety and war weariness that most Americans are feeling.

But when one of the biggest issues in the race is race itself, it is unclear that he can win. And it’s also unclear how low he will go to try, haplessly, to nullify that issue.

Kevin Alexander Gray is a writer and activist living in South Carolina. He managed the 1988 presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson in the state. His forthcoming books are “Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics” and “The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama.” He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.