"I read that, too, and I felt, dammit, here we go again," said Berry, who heard those same sentiments after she won the Best Actress Oscar for "Monster's Ball." "I remember after I won the Academy Award, some people said, Well, she's not really the first black actress to win."
That sentiment stung Berry, who as an aspiring model had to fight to make a go of it in a lily-white industry, a fight that continued when she turned to acting. She imagines things were no less difficult for Obama.
"I know that Barack is a black man, and I know why he feels like that, because look at him - he's lived his whole life treated as one," Berry said.
"Then, when wonderful things begin to happen, people want to deny him of who he is, and question his identity. So I do relate to him on that level."
When an interviewer observes that Toni Morrison once famously argued that Bill Clinton was the first black president, she chuckled at the irony that should Obama be elected, some eggheads may demand that he cede the title of first black president to Bill.
"It's a crazy world," laughed Berry.
Growing up in a mixed-race home in Cleveland, she learned just how crazy.
"When I was little, I understood that my mom was blonde and blue-eyed and very white, but I really didn't understand the difference between the two of us. Was I different from my mom? Yes, but I was different from my sister. We're all a little bit different.
"It was only when I started going to school, getting around the age 7, 8, 9, that the other kids started to let me know how different I was. There it was, this thing of racism. Suddenly the topic of race was crucial for me. But until then, I had innocently seen the world in a very color-blind way."
