You aren't qualified. Here is Post reporter Jonathan Weisman discussing the intricacies of Barack Obama's ethnic identity:
He really did not become immersed in black American culture until he left college and went to Chicago. The great irony is that he is much more white than black, beyond skin color.
This is false. In fact Obama had quite a bit of exposure to black culture in Hawaii and at Occidental. But be that as it may, the worst part of this whole campaign season is watching us get defined by people who don't know us, and have no interest in knowing us. They throw some Jigga on the Ipod, and they're ready to go. Can't get through the first verse of "Lift Every Voice." Wouldn't know Elijah Muhammad from John Allen Muhammad. But they know us. Watching these fools talk about Obama and race is like watching a bunch of biologists discuss the finer points of corporate law--and discuss it with authority. Like they know.
UPDATE: I just thought about this--by dude's standard we would lose roughly a third of the black middle class. My spouse would be white. Half of my black friends, are apparently not black either. Amazing.
Anyway, something else. This post will attract trolls. Do yourself--and this blog--a favor and don't feed them please. If it's serious, than debate it seriously. If not, don't let yourself get drawn into ignorance. Do the right thing ya'll.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
And it isn't just that they don't know black people, as in they don't "get" us. It's becoming increaingly obvious that reporters in the mainstream press obviously have very little genuine interaction with black people.
I hear your concern because I read your blog daily with a lot of pleasure but as the letter you posted the other day said, there comes a time where you should focus your energy on correcting the misunderstandings and pointing out how some well-intentioned journalists play into cliches rather than harp on their trying.
Because, once again, some of us really want to go there and we would be happy to be shown and explained and corrected.
Instead of getting mad here, you could have told us more about the Obama black experience in Hawaii and Occidental.
One thing I adored in what I think was your piece was the interesting history of the intra-black debate over relationships with white America and the degree to which separatism was the way to go. I did not know any of that and you have no idea what impact it had on me intellectually.
I would love for you to use that rightful annoyance and redirect it into something positive for those of us who really really want to take advantage of the Obama candidacy to open a discussion we may not have had otherwise and learn about the sides and diversity of the black experience in America we don't know or understand enough.
I dunno if you can describe as well-intentioned a guy who thinks he understands the "great ironies" of Obama's ethnic identity. That sentence just evidences a lack of curiosity. That said, this guy is obviously in a whole other league from the guys who say: "You support Obama? Haven't you heard about *gasp* black liberation theology? Look it up on wikipedia!"
In any event, what is the significance of exposure to black culture in the first place? He grew up in a back body in America, I'm sure that did a lot for him in terms of understanding race and racism in this country. A large part of black culture has to do with being a conscious being in a racist society. You don't need to be around black people to understand that, society has a way of making sure you get it.
White people often make the mistake of thinking they know, because the portrayals of black people in the media are so remarkably consistent. Segregation facilitates that thinking because there is very little inter-racial contact in this country.
Further, him being "much more white than black" means what exactly? His Harvard education? His Charisma? His Politics? His speech? His early cocaine use? His love of basketball? What exactly is it that makes him more white than black? I Thats such a troubling statement to make, and I'd love for someone to ask him exactly what he means by that.
I'm about halfway through 'Dreams From My Father' and I am convinced that almost no one in the media has actually read the book. It contextualizes Obama in a way that a hundred 2,500 word profiles never could.
The ignorance being circulated is incredible to me, because the truth (the knowable truth, that is) is right there.
This is totally unrelated, but I enjoyed the story on you and your father and brother in USA Today. Having been raised by an Old-School Mother and Father, I thought your father was on point.
Benjamin, the rightful annoyance comes with the package. None of what Ta-Hehisi mentioned about Obama's experiences in Hawaii and Occidental are hidden Black facts. No secret Black telepathy involved either.
Curiosity of any color would lead you to it. And the intra-black debate is the revolution that was, is and remains televised.
No one owes you patience. No one especially owes you the consideration that you were born yesterday, unaware of what's been in plain view for years. Consult Black media much?
Separatism??
Anyway... Knowledge is free. Observation of everyday goings on too. Most people don't have to ask for directions when mapping is in ready supply and plenty of signs exists.
I will ask though... Are you willing to tour guide Whiteness in exchange? You have heard of that idea, right? Exchange.
Correction:
"None of what Ta-Nehisi mentioned..."
This seems like you're having it both ways- you want black solidarity for the positive stuff, like Barack Obama. He clearly belongs to you, not white people, I suppose because he is successful and has black skin. But those black kids acting the fool on the train, nah, they don't belong to you. Anything negative and you run the other way, saying the black community is much more complex and diverse than that. I guess black solidarity has its limits.
Maybe you could do a post on what qualifies someone to write an article about black people. Because as best I can tell, it's limited to the black intelligentsia. Most white people couldn't tell Elijah Muhammad from John Allen Muhammad, but then neither could most black people, which means they can't write articles about themselves.
But it would be great if you could list the cultural touchstones that proper black Americans know and that non-black people learn about so as to be qualified to report on this group of people in our country. Just a little cheat sheet, something for me to know beyond Lil' Wayne and Pacman Jones, which I can read while eating my cucumber sandwiches.
And don't tell me to go hang out with more black people, because just as I'm not stupid enough to think I can learn about rednecks by hovering in the honky-tonk and Nascar track, I'm not going to insult blacks by going Margaret Mead in the barbershop and Sunday service. Just give me the "Authentic Black America" cliff notes.
I can't wait until more blogs like this one kill lazy journalistic prose for good.
My first thought was that we need to get that guy who won "I Know Black People" on the Chapelle show. I'm sure he still has plenty of hair grease, but could probably use the Newports, especially if he's here in NYC.
"I just thought about this--by dude's standard we would lose roughly a third of the black middle class. My spouse would be white. Half of my black friends, are apparently not black either. Amazing."
Yes, exactly, this is what I've been saying all along here, this phenomenon is real. People will judge your RACE by your BEHAVIOR and NOT YOUR SKIN COLOR.
It's not good that people ascribe certain behavior to blacks and others to whites, since we know people are more complex than that. But they do this. And if we want to jump on a clueless media reporter for saying what a lot of people are thinking, okay. But this ignores the meat of the story, about why people are thinking this way. Getting reporters to realize they are not qualified to speak this way isn't going to stop people from thinking this way.
American racial discourse is paralyzed by an obsessive-compulsive need to categorize. Obama's mother was white, and he was raised by his white grandmother in Kansas. Obama understands the swelling, yet sometimes naive, hometown patriotism that a small working class Midwestern town survives on--because he IS that. Obama's father was black, and he was exposed to black culture in Hawaii and beyond. Obama understands the often insouciant myopia of mainstream white society, and the frustrations that come from living with brown skin--because he IS that. All these experiences were formative; all of them influenced his identity. His "white" experiences don't cancel out his "black" experiences, or vice versa.
The fact is, Obama is both. Weisman's comments show that he (and many others, I suspect) simply cannot comprehend this truth. Blackness and whiteness are not mutually exclusive things. We only make them that way.
Okay, last comment here, since I'm the troll.
Nobel-Prize winning author Toni Morrison: "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."
Keeping Morrison's description of blackness in mind, do we now see why a journalist might say Obama is more white than black?
My goal in my postings was never to solidify conceptions of blackness and whiteness. Rather, I think it would be great if at the same time that we denounce racial straitjackets, we acknowledge how common for us to unwittingly perpetuate them at the exact same time. My bias is for discussing the latter over the former, but if that is not shared, so be it. It's been fun.
The more I think about it, the less I understand what "more white than black" is supposed to mean. Does it mean "he went to Harvard"? Most white people don't go to Harvard.
Does it mean, "he speaks in complete sentences that are well constructed"? Most white people, in my experience, don't speak that way, just the intellectuals. I mean, George Bush doesn't even speak that way.
Does it mean, "he's been around white people a lot and isn't intimidated, awed, or angered by them?" This one has a shot.
Maybe it means, "he keeps his focus away from racial resentment and associated rhetoric, unlike many previous black politicians we know of." Of course, about a third of whites can't do this, and an certain number of white politicians can't do this.
So, "more white than black" somehow means, "I can relate to him, even though I'm white", that's the best I can come up with.
Would it make more sense to say that he's a black man that puts more emphasis rhetorically and politically on "man" than on "black"?
I have to say, this is the best blog and I thank you for your incredible work. A would like to echo what ML said. Obama is an individual who is both black and white. I mean, why is this so difficult to get? Americans are infected with a type of dichotomous, either/or frame of reference. This makes it really hard to have discussions about anything ... much less race, one of the more complex issues in this country. I personally believe this is a type of collective pathology. I attribute it, in part, to a win/lose mentality. It is hyper-rationalism gone bad.
Anyway, if we can all try to be mindful of that -- and the fact that our own sense of identity gets in the way of discussion, then maybe it would open up the dialogue. I think, underlying alot of comments I read on this blog, there is a theory out there that whites do not have a self awareness of being white, while blacks, in part due to being in a minority, in part due to history, have an intense self awareness of being black in this country, whether they want to or not. I think this is true. I do not "self identify" as white really. It is like a non-issue in my mind when I think about myself. It only comes up in reaction to not being white - so in a comparative sense. If I then make comments or assumptions about another culture/race/group with a lack of self awareness of my own brainwashing, then this comes across as arrogance or naivete -- or at least it is likely to get some eye-rolling responses.
So, on the one hand, I can see why someone finds white people's requests for "come on, be nice, they are trying," a bit, well, trying. On the other hand, I can say that the defensiveness on some fronts in the face of well intentioned attempts at communication is also trying.
This is a general comment. It does not, however, get to the very real damage that MSM and self anointed journalists can do. When there is no give or take and no ability to react on an individual basis -- even anonymously- then the end result is the article stands as an authority on the topic and merely reinforces perceptions based on faulty assumptions.
But really, there is a certain honesty everyone has to bring to the debate as an individual. And this is very, very hard to do no matter your color, gender, education or even personality. Once anyone truly approaches a topic from an individual point of view, as opposed to a collective/group/culture point of view, then everything gets more human and less conceptual (imo).
Ta-Nehisi,
As little as many of these mainstream white reporters seem to understand black people, I would submit that they have even less understanding of biracial and multiracial people. You can see it in so many of the stories about Obama, writers trying to parse through how much of Obama's identity is "black", and how much is "white." They see him as somehow divided.
The truth is, being biracial or multiracial does not mean that you have a divided personality, that you are somehow conflicted in your loyalties, or even that you have a "white half" and a "black half." The answer to the question of whether biracial people like Obama are white or black is that they are both. I say this as a white man married to a Creole woman (blonde hair, blue eyes, ancestry both European and African), father to four un-conflicted bi-racial kids.
If the reporter quoted above knew this, he would not have written that Obama is "more white than black." He would have known that there's no such things as fractional portions within a person.