“Black folks, in particular, get irritated,” says Johnson, who travels the lecture circuit, hosts a half-hour show on Black Entertainment Television and has a weekly spot for social criticism on a radio program popular with black listeners. Get past “Obama the personality” and see “Obama the president,” he says. “Otherwise all you’re being is a political-celebrity groupie instead of a citizen. . . . It starts with acknowledging he’s my president, and not my homie.”…

They are learning to negotiate what talk show host and author Tavis Smiley calls an “unfamiliar dance.” If you push too forcefully, he says he has learned, you risk your credibility in the community.