A couple of recent articles tackle the question of race in America from two ends of the cultural spectrum.

Mark de la Vina of the Mercury News discusses how comedians are some of the few people who are actually talking about Barack Obama’s race.

Paul Mooney, a very funny, veteran African American comedian, says Obama present a challenge to white America: “We’ve always had to say, does this white man like us? We’ve always had to think race. And this is the first time white people have had to think race.”

And Roland S. Martin says that comedy is the perfect venue for that thinking — but maybe not conversing — to occur:

The comedic moment liberates people to laugh out loud at what they really feel and what they really think, but they’re going to naturally suppress those thoughts and views once they’re outside that particular arena,” he said. “It’s OK to sit in that arena and just crack up laughing about rednecks, making jokes about Obama’s ears or his race or whatever, but the moment you want to have the conversation, the whole dynamic changes.

The best joke in the article? That would be when we hear a bit from W. Kamau Bell’s recent stand-up show:

I’m voting for Barack Obama. Not for the reason you expect. I did it because he’s black. Not because he’s intelligent, or well spoken or represents hope. Nope. You had me at Negro.

From another perspective, Dahleen Glanton of the Chicago Tribune does a great job breaking down “coded prejudice” — when people use a secret language of sorts to identify and frequently stereotype African Americans and other minorities.

It uses the present presidential campaign as a starting point the discuss the power and influence of this coding — reminding us about everything from “welfare queens” to Willie Horton and noting how Obama has already had to fight this subtle racism:

“We hear code words all the time in talk radio. It’s a constant drumbeat,” said [Steve] Rendall, who also co-hosts FAIR’s national radio show, “CounterSpin.” “Code word bigotry is a secret code, a secret handshake between the listening audience and the host.

“Either conscious or unconscious, there is sometimes a mispronunciation of [Obama's] name or dwelling on his middle name [Hussein], suggesting that he is some covert Muslim. It is not overt racism but it is xenophobic.”

But it’s an admirably broad piece, tracing the recent history of lawsuits based on coding, which is still being legally defined.

On eve of what might be the end of the Hillary Clinton candidacy (Obama should, at least, have ensured himself a majority of the pledged delegates after the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon on Tuesday), my joy is mixed with both bitterness and regret.

While I am a happy Obama supporter, I’ve waited too long for this day to come, and I am resentful of the way Clinton has dragged out this primary process for what I can see as nothing other than self-absorbed reasons at best. Her race-baiting throughout the campaign worsened my already low opinion of her campaign tactics.

But I have been regrettably silent in this space about the disturbing misogyny that has permeated much of the media’s coverage. To do a little make-up work, let me point you to a YouTube video that is a very effective primer to the conversation:

The words of Edward R. Murrow and the fictional Howard Beale are a little much, but the pattern in the clips is devastatingly clear.

The overwhelmingly male pundits and the pontificators couldn’t get a handle on how to talk about a powerful and prominent woman on the campaign trail. They fell back again and again on numerous stereotypes — from the nagging wife to the emotional wreck — instead of taking her seriously.

Marie Cocco (The Washington Post) and Connie Schultz (The Capitol Times) have articulated the sad consequences of the media’s gendered coverage extremely well.

E.J. Graff, though, might have the most substantial critique of a media that systematically refuses to recognize women’s worth. Although her revealing research doesn’t explicitly reference the present campaign coverage, it goes a long way toward explaining it.