Moving forward....or stuck in neutral?

How is it that one of the nation's goals is always "Abolish racism," especially recently with the upcoming election, but the nation does nothing but ADVANCE racism?
Sounds odd, but think about it.
By continuously pointing out the fact that Presidential Candidate Obama is black, isn't that promoting the fact that there's a difference between him and Presidential Candidate McCain? Obama came into the election claiming that he wanted to leave his race out of the election, but by publicizing this fact and using this as a staple in the campaign publicity, isn't that just pronouncing the difference?
I'm not racist, so don't think that I'm just trying to tear apart people based on race, sex, religion, or anything else. My point is, if we just ignore the fact that people are different, quit accentuating the fact, wouldn't the concern about being different vanish too?
We have the NAACP still around, and several other ethnic organizations, which may have been useful at some point, and maybe a few still are, but a lot of these aren't making racism any more scarce. Is that a National Association for the Advancement of White People? Not saying that there should be; but do we still need the NAACP?
If we keep singling out people because they're "different", we're never going to be able to see everyone as the same.