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chasbyrd
Guru
Joined: 27 Nov 2004
{Posts: 389 }
Location: NYC
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 Posted: Wed 13 Dec 2006 05:50 Post subject: Barack Obama: black or biracial? |
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| Quote: | New Hampshire makes him hot
Your responses on Mary's blog
December 12, 2006
BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist
Why are so many people saying that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama could become the first black president? If by that they mean that he would become the first African-American president -- meaning his father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas -- it would make sense.
But I don't think that's what people mean.
Despite the deaths of legal segregation and Jim Crow, apparently most Americans still embrace the one-drop rule.
F. James Davis, a retired professor of sociology at Illinois State University, defined the one-drop rule as the belief that any person with ''any known African black ancestry'' is considered to be black.
Actually, if Obama is elected president of the United States, he would become the nation's first biracial president, wouldn't he? Obama has never shied away from his African heritage, and this is not about how he views his racial identity.
The point is, it doesn't look like the public is giving him much choice. Although his mother is white, and he was raised in a home with his white grandparents, to many, the one-drop rule still applies.
As pointed out by Stephan Thernstrom in an article published in the National Review in April 2000, ''the United States is the only country in the world in which a white woman can give birth to a black baby but a black woman cannot give birth to a white baby.'' |
Click on the above link for responses to Mitchell's remarks. Gee, I wonder if the usual suspects are going to chastise me for posting a column suggesting that Obama isn't really "black" after all  |
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Salsassin
SuperWizard
Joined: 04 Apr 2005
{Posts: 3515 }
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| Posted: Wed 13 Dec 2006 07:32 Post subject: |
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| If he adopted the culture, he is, and biracial as well. Not sure he fully did. I do beleive he adopted the moniker African American though. |
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odocoileus
Mentor
Joined: 05 Apr 2006
{Posts: 300 }
Location: Chatsworth, CA
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| Posted: Wed 13 Dec 2006 16:26 Post subject: |
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In some respects this is a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" debate. Like alot of black identified Americans, Obama is both multiracial and black identified.
He's married to and has several children with an antebellum descended black woman of African phenotype. I believe he belongs to a black church. His political career in Illinois developed in part through his alliances with Jesse Jackson and other black power brokers in Democratic politics. It's clear that many black Americans see him as one of their own. (Note that I said "many", not all by any means.)
As Salassin noted, he has taken on the moniker of African American. He appears to have made his choice about his identity within the existing cultural and political frameworks of US society. |
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sagascend
Moderator-at-Large
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
{Posts: 2418 }
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| Posted: Thu 14 Dec 2006 15:19 Post subject: |
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| The question is a silly one to begin with. Thousands of people consider themselves "Black" and "biracial" and the world manages to keep spinning and Hell has been contained. Apparently, psychological pain and consternation though it must cause some people, Barack sees himself as an African American who is biracial. He certainly didn't correct Bishop Desmond Tutu when he called him a Black man. |
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MrSolo
New User
Joined: 19 Jun 2005
{Posts: 49 }
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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| Posted: Fri 15 Dec 2006 04:16 Post subject: |
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| Perhaps he is an African-American in the true sense of the term. |
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gemini072
Moderator
Joined: 27 Nov 2004
{Posts: 2942 }
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| Posted: Tue 19 Dec 2006 19:48 Post subject: |
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| MrSolo wrote: | | Perhaps he is an African-American in the true sense of the term. |
Actually your right.
Barak and mother
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