You aren't qualified.
--Brian Billick
Noticed in the comments below we're debating whether Obama is actually "black" again. This seems like a monthly topic. It always amazes me when I see a scrum of white people claiming that some dude "isn't really black" or that "he talks white." Predictably this sort of logic comes from the same people who claim that such identity games are part of the problem with black youth. For the record these dubious accolades aren't just reserved to biracial blacks but is often awarded to any black who manages to hold a job, tie a Windsor knot and dont be tryin to talk like dis. But you must admit that it is, indeed, an incredible time to be alive--here we have a pill-shooting, Malcolm X-paraphrasing, dap-giving, dirt-off-the-shoulder-brushing, Omar-from-The-Wire loving dude from the South Side who "isn't really black." Postracial indeed.
Let me not strain this debate. Here's a simple way to think about this--let the dude be who he wants to be. I'm not biracial, and my only acquaintance with that experience is anecdotal. I would not endeavor to be so arrogant, rude and ignorant as to tell any biracial what they are. If Tiger Woods considers himself Cablinasian, so be it. What the fuck do I know about how he's lived? Ditto for Barack. If he considers himself a biracial black man, then that's the end of the debate for me. Furthermore, in that identity, he stands in an honorable tradition--Frederick Douglass was a biracial black man as was Booker T. Washington. Malcolm X's mother was biracial.
To white people who feel smart enough to assess the relative blackness quotient of black people, I say--Stop Now. No offense, but just on the strength of you having this dialogue, I'm certain you haven't the fucking faintest idea what you're talking about. To black people who feel that your years of living in your skin gives you the right to question another man's blackness, I say--Stop Yesterday. All indication seem to demonstrate that nothing intelligent is coming from our end either.
Why not give the man his respect. He is what he says he is. A black man with a white mother. Let's not act like he's the first.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Can you expand on how this relates to the one drop rule?
As a "100% black person" (whatever the hell that means) who has been accused of "acting white" or being "not really black" all of my life, I say "Amen" to your post.
Although I don't want it to happen, I'm hoping that, if McCain wins, Obama ends his concession speech with "they are who we thought they were, and we let 'em off the hook!" Maybe that will convince people he's blacker.
I took part in a discussion of this sort a few days ago in one of your comment threads. The focus of the discussion, as I remember it, was not whether I or the other commenter, who are both white, could assess the blackness quotient, but whether the blackness quotient exists in the minds of the white electorate. I think that it does. And therefore I think the topic is worth our discussion to the extent that Obama's position on the white - black continuum is important to the electorate's opinion of him as a candidate. This is a separate question than whether it should affect their opinion of him as a candidate. I think most of your commenters would agree that it should not.
What is all this talk about "race"?
Hasn't everybody heard that we transcended race almost 2 weeks ago?
This whole discussion is so August 2008!
The definitions don't hold anymore, and shouldn't, really. Dude was raised by his white mom and white grandparents. If he has to define himself to fit into some preconceived identity then he's pretty much by definition rejecting some aspect of his own reality.
Look, race matters, but it matters in increasingly different ways than what we've been used to. We'll all have to figure it out for ourselves, and it's probably best to think it through quietly.
"...here we have a pill-shooting, Malcolm X-paraphrasing, dap-giving, dirt-off-the-shoulder-brushing, Omar-from-The-Wire loving dude from the South Side who 'isn't really black.'"
Ha! Great line.
Who cares whether he's "black enough"? A better question is what are his real beliefs and values? He has been a master at making others feel he shares their views, from poor blacks in South Side housing projects to micro brew-drinking coastal liberals, to billionaires in Silicon Valley and Chicago. He obviously doesn't agree with all of you, so what does he really believe? Where do his loyalties lie? To what extent he considers himself African American culturally is a trivial issue in comparison.
Is Obama an Alinksyite leftist or a Clintonite centrist? Do you even know? Or care?
Great post. I'm bookmarking it and expect I'll be pointing lots of people here over the next two months.
And therefore I think the topic is worth our discussion to the extent that Obama's position on the white - black continuum is important to the electorate's opinion of him as a candidate.
There's definitely a subset of the white electorate that finds Obama more palatable not only because he his half-white, but because his white roots are American and his black roots are not American, and therefore not beholden to America's predominant history with black people. There's also probably another sub-subset that finds him unpalatable for the same reasons.
PS - Here's a fun question - If a white person from Africa moves to the US and becomes an American citizen, is she African-American?
Here's a fun question - If a white person from Africa moves to the US and becomes an American citizen, is she African-American?
No, Charlize Theron is still white. That's how race works in America.
Is Obama an Alinksyite leftist or a Clintonite centrist? Do you even know? Or care?
Fred, the answer to this question is obvious to anybody who's paying any attention to Obama's stated positions on the issues. He clearly is much closer to being a Clintonite centrist than a Alinskyite leftist.
The only possible way you could be confused about this is 1)you haven't actually been paying attention to Obama's speeches,etc, instead, maybe, just getting your information from far-right blogs and McCain commercials or 2) something about Obama makes you think he has secret radical views despite his stated moderate positions (this is where racism may play a role).
I think there are a lot of different things mixed up in here, and the problem comes when one person in a conversation is talking about one of them while someone else is talking about one of the other ones. In the "how black is Obama" category, there's a combination of:
- His actual ancestry,
- How someone seeing him for the first time would identify him,
- How he identifies himself,
- Who he spends time with,
- Whether he has certain cultural markers of blackness (the exact list varies widely),
- Whether he supports a certain political agenda (the exact agenda can vary),
- Whether "black" is the same as "African American going way back" or also includes immigrant groups, and
- Whether the speaker is trying to claim affiliation with Obama or get some distance from him.
The last is the real wild card. A black person who wants to identify with Obama can choose to highlight his blackness, and a black person who wants to get some distance can highlight his non-blackness. Vice versa for a white person. There's enough material there for pretty much anyone to make a case, although some cases are more persuasive than others.
This sort of thing is somewhat offensive because it implies that people can't identify with members of other races, but there's a strong element of identity politics around and so it's understandable.
"something about Obama makes you think he has secret radical views despite his stated moderate positions (this is where racism may play a role)."
Classy, Peep. According to the non-partisan National Journal, Obama had the most liberal voting record in the Senate last year. If I put more weight on that (and on some of the leftists Obama has had close associations with in his past) than on Obama's recent general election speeches, then I must be a racist.
Barak is black. His skin is black, therefor he is black.
I am native american because I have the physical aspects of someone who is native american.
My wife is a mutt (1/16 black, 1/8 na, 1/4 italian, 1/8 english, 1/4 norse, ...) She looks like a mutt (african lips, italian nose, na skin, ...)
Race is physical appearance and that is it. Race is not educational ability. By many individuals qualifications most British black men would not be black. I believe the term that T uses is educated black man.
I personally hate stupid people it isn't a black thing, a white thing, or a middle eastern thing. I hate all stupid people relative to their level of stupidity.
Stereotypes are a different thing. Unfortunately when I see a black man in pants down to his crotch and an oversized jersey I automatically assume he is an idiot. I have met a few individuals that do not follow the stereotype. But I'm not the one to blame it is the others who give him a bad name.
For example my wife's step father is puerto rican. He despises mexican immigrants because they give him a bad stereotype.
"If Tiger Woods considers himself Cablinasian, so be it."
Just to clarify, Tiger Woods is black--he was picked in the first round of the Racial Draft:
http://www.tv.com/video/168/the-racial-draft-episode-clip
Obama was less well known at the time, so I'm not sure whether he was drafted.
Stupid, Fred. I said that racism "may play a role" for thinking that Obama had secret radical views when his stated views were moderate. Would you seriously argue that people aren't more inclined to think that Obama has radical views because of his skin color?
I could go over why the National Journal evaluation of voting records is bogus, but even if Obama was the most liberal senator that would still put him a lot closer to Clinton than Alinsky.
The close assocations with leftists in the past argument is too stupid to even argue against. It turns out Obama has associated with various people with different views! Shocking!
Word. It puts me in mind of an exchange from a Philip Roth novel (I think it was "The Counterlife", but I couldn't swear to it), when a character told the Roth-stand-in protagonist that he didn't behave like a Jew. "I don't have to act like a Jew", he said. "I am one."
I'm just astonished at the conversation. "Is he black enough" clearly isn't about his race. It's about his behavior, his diction, his education, his efforts. It's haters trying to keep a man down, casting around looking for some rhetoric that will reduce his juice in other people's eyes. It doesn't have to make any logical sense, it's only an emotional appeal. Whether it's blacks or white making the charge all it is is hating, trying to bring a man down a peg or two. In that sense it's simply propaganda, just like the propaganda that comes out of the mouth of the Republicans as regular as the 5:15 to Scranton.
And just like propaganda it can't be met head-on. It can't be treated like it means something real. You scoff at it, call it what it is, preferably with some bite, and move on. E.G. "Saying Barack Obama isn't black enough is just a dumb thing to say. It's a ridiculous argument who's only point makes zero sense. Whatever Barack Obama is is OK by me."
This is a monthly topic indeed. Forgive me for recycling, but I'm trying to reduce my carbon footprint. (For the record, I'm biracial.)
My comment from June:
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. these comments show that the press (and many others, I suspect) simply cannot comprehend this truth. Blackness and whiteness are not mutually exclusive things. We only make them that way.
Peep,
Calling something or someone stupid doesn't make for an intelligent argument. In the words of our host, come harder, son.
Barack Obama -- the Tiresias of American race relations.
Yes Senator Obama is biracial, but the media and other liberals always call him black.
Why does the good Senator always call himself black and never white? Why is his black side more important than his white side?
Who gets to decide that?
Being married for twenty years to a biracial Native American woman, I can attest these sorts of judgements from both whites and members of the groups in question are invaribly stupid and reflect poorly on the people involved. I don't know how many times I've heard "oh, she's a doctor. So she must not have been raised in the culture." Usually when arguing with some teaching colleagues that we need to have higher expectations.
Nothing wrong with having the conversation per se, as long as you recognize that the eventual outcome is meaningless. Arguing about the extent of someone's blackness is like arguing about whether a trees makes a sound when it falls in a empty forrest. It's one of those conversations you can have with the right crowd of folks to burn a few hours on a Saturday night, but ultimately youre talking about nothing.
-it's like a lyrical exercise
I must confess to wondering whether there is such a thing as a stable "white" identity. I myself am on the paler side of the spectrum of whiteness, have a non-American accent, and don't feel aligned to any specific white "representative" group. I am certainly not part of the legendary Jacksonian demographic in the Appalachians, don't feel much like a "cosmopolitan" New Yorker (thank you, dear Gauleiter Giuliani!), never lived in California, definitely don't belong to any part of Dixie, and simply would not cut it as a Midwesterner. Does that make me a European American, not an American American, even though I live and work in the US? Is this a different shade of white? Less red meat perhaps? I am perplexed as to how I should be classified. God help me if I were dumb enough to start categorizing those with a richer melanin complement than myself. And don't even get me started on the various strands of Asian identity!
Damn I loved this post. Some of us grew up trying to escape from the ethnic-religious-whatever identities our parents foisted on us... to remake ourselves as we saw fit, as individuals first and "types," like, ninth.
I think this is why people of a certain generation and temperament like Barack so much. We get him, on this and other levels, even when we don't agree with him.
Keep writing, Coates, we are digging it.
BB
Thank You! Thanks for making the point that the respectful position is to listen to how biracial people identify. I'm of mixed descent - white and latina. I identify as latina, even though I "look white." It's about the life I've lived, my family, my culture, growing up seeing the world from a non-white perspective - as in, looking at the dominant white culture and growing up knowing you're different and looking to other non-white examples out there and in my community to understand myself and forge my identity. Actually, black intellectuals were a big influence because they were asking questions I could relate to.
Fred,
I'm sorry for hurting your feelings.
I actually think you are pretty smart for a white guy.
In spite of being a physician of african ancestry, I have never been mistaken for anything else. However, I still get that occasional "you are not like them" surprise diatribe!
Whiteness gets pretty odd too. Just get a group of Irish Americans started about the English. Or how about those Russians and Georgians?
Any sufficiently large group is going to have lots of internal divisions, plus overlap with other groups. Raises lots of questions for anyone who isn't exactly in the center of the distribution for one group or another. But I think that's interesting, provided you don't have a psychological need to pigeonhole people. Any two people are going to have some things in common and some things not-in-common. This isn't a problem among people who mean well.
(And if people are just looking for trouble, the exact reasoning they use is not all that important.)
> let the dude be who he wants to be
Just so. The U.S. Census figured this out a long time ago; people can self-identify any damn way they want to, including (since 2000) of being mixed race. The whole concept of race is an artifical one, not actually based in biology, but as long it remains in our culture, we all need to keep the hell away from defining what others are or aren't.
I have a friend who teaches anthropology, and one thing she does in her intro-level class is to ask the students to line up along the wall based on their skin color from lightest to darkest. Easy enough. Then she says, "OK, where does white end and black begin?" They can't say, of course, and neither should we try when it comes to others.
Well said Mr. Coates.
I'm 50 and probably could retire now if I saved a dollar every time I was told "Realy? You don't look it."
The "it" is "of Mexican ancenstry". All my grandparents were born in Mexico; my parents were born in the States along the migrant worker trail. A few of my cousins have blond curly hair and fair skin. While not blond, I don't fit the stereotypical Mexican look in complexion, eye or hair color.
I would hear this comment anytime I stated my ethnicity, ancenstry, race, whatever you want to call it. I hear this from people from every background. Sometimes, I thought, would do I have to do, wear a sombrero, eat a tamale, and mow somebody's lawn?
Anyway, it gets old. As the great philosopher said, "I yam what I yam".
... so is Sen. Obama.
I am no expert on race, but the one thing I know is that Obama is blacker than the first black President that we had in the 1990's.
Obama is a Black man married to a Black woman and they produced two Black children.
If you had Obama and Harold Ford, Jr.'s pictures side by side, and you asked folks to pick the ' biracial person',
what's the liklihood that they would pick Obama over the green-eyed Ford?
Slim to none.
Obama is a Black man with a White mother. Many of my ancestors were Black with White FATHERS, if you know what I mean.
I was looking for the original of this song (which I know, as many do, from King of New York), which is directly applicable to this discussion, but this condensed Obama-specific version that I found seems more appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRBgxjslgqg&feature=related
No offense, but just on the strength of you having this dialogue, I'm certain you haven't the fucking faintest idea what you're talking about.
Lighten up, man. I'm looking at your rules for posting, and it doesn't say a damned thing about having to have any idea what I'm talking about. Hell, if I can make comments about the future of the Anbar Awakening and the right way to bail out Fannie and Freddie, why can't I talk about how black Obama is?
I am sick of hearing what people think about Obama's "blackness" or among certain people the lack thereof. I don't care. Obama is intelligent articulate, sees multiple sides to every issue and when he has considered the evidence makes a decision.
The only thing left to ask is whether he enjoy's cream cheese on his Bagels.
I can't vote for a man that doesn't like cream cheese. :-)
I'm a little surprised to see this "he's not really black stuff" address to whites. This is admittedly anecdotal, but I've only heard comments about someone being "not black" firsthand twice in my life, and both of those instances were black people criticizing other black people (Lynne Swan and Colin Powell, in case you're curious). Other than that, my experience is limited to Chapelle's "given away by blacks" jab at Condi.
My experience may be the exception, of course, but the context I've heard it in is one of blacks accusing other blacks of some form of selling out. I'm sure the accusation comes from all sides, though this has been my own firsthand impression of it.
I thought he always had to be referred to as MFing Omar when spoken of in the third person.
Jon:
Word. It puts me in mind of an exchange from a Philip Roth novel (I think it was "The Counterlife", but I couldn't swear to it), when a character told the Roth-stand-in protagonist that he didn't behave like a Jew. "I don't have to act like a Jew", he said. "I am one."
I actually thought of this moment from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air: "Being black isn't what I'm trying to be; it's what I am."
There are three contexts in which I have heard white people ask the question about whether someone is "really" black:
1. When dealing with Latinos who appear to have some degree of African ancestry. I don't think there is any real consensus about terminology in this case, so confusion is expected.
2. When dealing with Ethiopians and Somalis, who do have dark skin but who appear to be a somewhat different ethnicity than people of West African ancestry. This may be similar to asking questions about whether Arabs are white.
3. When dealing with people about whom there is really some ambiguity, either because of ancestry or appearance. The ancestry one comes up for Obama, and both come up for Derek Jeter.
I don't know any white people under 75 who are shocked by black people who sound white (or for that matter British or French), or who are well educated or politically conservative. Any major fussing about those things is coming from somewhere else.
The Kennedy family was often considered "not Irish enough" by east coast Irish folks who thought that was important. Does anyone remember that?
Also, Tiger Woods is half Asian. He's more Asian than African as his father wasn't "fully black."
All of this slicing and dicing is such a waste of our collective energy.
Next thing you know, you'll want to start judging the candidates on the issues...
I don't know any white people under 75 who are shocked by black people who sound white (or for that matter British or French), or who are well educated or politically conservative. Any major fussing about those things is coming from somewhere else.
Hi. Welcome to America. First time visiting? Make sure you stop by Devil's Elbow, MO, or Kennesaw, GA as you pass through. Remember that "other race" comment from WVa during the primaries? She was a school teacher.
He has been a master at making others feel he shares their views, from poor blacks in South Side housing projects to micro brew-drinking coastal liberals, to billionaires in Silicon Valley and Chicago. He obviously doesn't agree with all of you, so what does he really believe.
Why can't he agree with all of them?
We the People agree on a lot more than we disagree on. And most of the things we disagree on, it's really a matter of degree or extent. We agree that our kids should go to good schools, but we disagree on how to make that happen.
Why do you assume that folks with different self-interests have to disagree as a general rule?
I have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Who is questioning Obama's blackness? We have a one-drop custom in the US, a holdover from slavery. Does anyone seriously question it? Do blacks? Blacks are the biggest supporters of the one-drop rule. Blacks laugh at Tiger Wood for saying he isn't black!
"tie a Windsor knot and dont be tryin to talk like dis."
Why does Obama pronounce the word "policy" as "polic-eh"? Listen to the lipstick on a pig tape! He's trying to sound like a South Side black person whose parents came from the Deep South. He's so phony he could make Britney Spears look gritty and real.
"here we have a pill-shooting, Malcolm X-paraphrasing, dap-giving, dirt-off-the-shoulder-brushing, Omar-from-The-Wire loving dude from the South Side who "isn't really black."
Well, that's because this is all phony garbage, an act. He's really a preppie from Paradise. Who ain't never gonna be President.
Mr. F, you must have missed Toby Keith's ruminations about Barack not being considered black enough.
But that's neither here nor there.
TNC, great post man. You broke it down so that it will forever and eternally be broke. I've always found it ridiculous that people would deign it necessary to fit people into racial categories that they aren't comfortable with. That's an individual choice and I most certainly respect someone's decision to honor all their bloodlines.
I want to know what John Rich has to say about this subject.
I have resisted the Black-White thing with regard to Obama since he first became a viable candidate.
My tongue in cheek response has been, "I really like half white guy; he seems to have a good head on his shoulders." My less tongue in cheek response has been, "This guy could be just another smooth, full of shit politician but if he is the real deal, I'm not sure we deserve him. But if we are lucky, we will get him."
I also say Amen to your post. Race should not matter here. Where the candidates will take our country should.
For fuck's sake, what's next? Whether or not McCain is Irish enough? Whether or not Obama is "black" has got to be the most idiotic discussion, ever. Because I guarantee that there's lots of people like my granny who aren't voting for Obama precisely because they're damned sure he is, and folks really have to move past that bullshit.
Good post. Identity is way too personal of a thing for one to speculate on somebody else's, particularly if that somebody isn't somebody you actually know but is instead somebody you've heard about on the news.
That said, I do think that Barack's background offers him a better understanding of where a lot of white folks are coming from than other black politicians might have, which is why white people make nonsensical claims that he's not black and whatnot. When Obama talks about his grandmother's inborn racism that she struggles against, I feel like he really gets it. He seems to have a real understanding that we're all in this together, along with an aversion to playing identity politics for that very reason. Maybe I'm projecting onto him what I wish to see, but I do think his multicultural background - both racially and in terms of upbringing - seems to have made him a more open person than your typical politician. It's not about anger, it's about understanding and compromise. The supposedly "white" part of him that apparently comforts white voters would appear to be a very real part of him, not an invention in spite of his blackness.
In response to Fred's question: I think those poor blacks and micro-brew sipping liberals have more interests in common than the economic conservatives who for a dollar would sell their souls to the GOP and the three-issue religious voters who have been coopted to vote against their own economic interests to keep that economic elite in place. As for the billionaire vote, I think you've been McCainified into thinking wealth starts at $5 million.
Is Barack black enough?
Christ, just ask yourself-- could that man have hailed a cab in Manhattan five years ago?
Enough bloody well said.
-renko
I agree with you that Obama (like everyone else) is free to define himself as he wishes. However, to hear his diction and cadence shift dramatically when he speaks to an African American crowd (typically in the south) is jarring. If his style was consistent, I do not think this would be much of an issue. Is this pandering or just one of the benefits of being biracial? Having said this, dismissing the role of colorism within American society is naive.
Finally, I praise you for having open comments. Some of your colleagues apparently are intimidated by them.
Whitey:
I can't say I follow BO's campaign stops religiously, but I am surprised he does not emphasize his white relatives more. I know that Dems want this to be a policy election, but what could John McCain or the press go after if BO talked about his mom and her mom? That's the 18 year old mother we ought to be talking about. When the feeding-frenzy started about Palin's daughter started, it was classy for him to say that was out of bounds. He could (and I say should) gone further and riffed about how hard it is for young mothers in this country and tied it to his experience with his mother.
CB--As Ta-Nehisi said, Senator Obama gets to decide what he is, and he has decided that he is a Black man. I am sure the choice was made "easier" by his appearance; he can not exactly pass for white, now can he?
Anyone on this thread who has not read "Dreams From My Father" really should; it will go a long way towards explaining Obama's racial identity.
Anyway, I'm sure we all agree that Toby Keith is a tool, so as you say, it's neither here nor there.
To Mr. Chang who questioned whether or not a white person from Africa who moves to the U.S. is an "African-American"? My answer is no. "African-American", to me anyway, is solely the description of those of us who are the descendants of the enslaved Africans who were brought here from the motherland. An African immigrant, who say comes from Nigeria is a Nigerian-American, just as someone from Italy is an Italian-American.
A white person, from Africa, whose ethnic heritage is say German, is just that - a German who was born in Africa and now lives in the U.S. or has become a U.S. citizen.
"African-American" refers to those of us whose native country of origin was stolen and therefore unknown to us. That's how I feel about it anyway.
"No, Charlize Theron is still white. That's how race works in America."
The white people in Africa are not Africans! Many of them still trace their heritage back to Europe. Just as the only real Americans here are Mexicans and Native Americans.
Is Obama black enough?
For real?
Couple of simple tests, in addition to the cab-catching test mentioned above:
1) if, when confronted by the NYPD, he were to reach for his wallet...would he be shot dozens of times, or would they stay cool and wait to see what was in his hand?
2) has he ever been called uppity? (a term that is only ever used on blacks and women, in my very Southern experience)
3) if he had whistled at a white woman in Birmingham 50 years ago, would he still be alive?
The thing is, the entire question of whether someone is "enough" of one race or another proves how arbitrary and foolish the race concept is anyway. How can you be partially something, but not quite enough of that something to actually be that something? The whole point of racial distinctions is that there's supposed to be some distinction between these different groups. If someone is halfway into one group, halfway into the other, the groups themselves are invalid.
And, to all of my white brethren who keep asking why Obama only ever calls himself black...would you take him seriously if he went around with that complexion and that hair calling himself white? Honestly? And if you'd like to know who came up with the "rule" that black blood is more important than white blood, the answer is simple: white people did.
You can debate the whiteness and blackness of biracial people all day long and not solve anything or learn anything.
But here's what's important.
If both Obama's parents were white (and American). If his wife was white, and his preacher and his favorite sport was hockey...
He would still be different from every President and candidate for President we've encountered in the modern age because of his willingness and preference for discussing the issues that matter in language that is meaningful to intelligent people.
Barack Obama is biracial. I don't give a hog's crap about one drop rules. I am so tired of this antiquated thinking. Just because people may say he's black because that's how he will perceived to be by people, doesn't make that nonsense so. A person with a white mother and black father or vice versa, etc..is BIRACIAL!
There's only one human race extant--Homo sapiens. All the cultural brouhaha is about what are known as color phases in other species.
I read in the NYT that the transition from dark to light skin came quite quickly after Homo sapiens made it to northern Europe. The selection pressure was strong (pale skin, weak sun, vitamin D, rickets) and the genetic structure for skin color was simple.
I'm wishing you would elaborate on this sentence from your original post: "Predictably this sort of logic comes from the same people who claim that such identity games are part of the problem with black youth."
One test. Will a NY cabbie pick him up in Harlem on a rainy night? Yes, he's black. Now cut it out, people.
This is the Black communities unpatriotic charge. And like so, the same people who wield it are just like the people in this race who claim Obama is not patriotic or does not loves his country. They both want power and don't like the fact that Obama has come out of no where to claim it.
But, the are all the same. Deep down they don't give a shit. The right-wing pols claim they are patriotic at rallies while cutting healthcare benefits for veterans. Left wing black pols claim they are blacker than everyone else while padding their bank accounts and watching their community drowns in poverty.
Ultimately, the argument is irrelevant. The real reason Bill Clinton was the first black president is that more blacks moved into the middle class than any other president. That's black enough for me.
I'm with Andrew Fly
I am white, child of a mother of Irish descent and father of English/Scottish decent.
Or so I thought.
Recently, I had one of those deep ancestry DNA tests done, by the National Geographic Society's Genomic Project.
I can officially say now that I am an African. At least, as of 40,000 years ago. I've probably got genetic relatives in Libya and Egypt and all of North Africa still. These are the genes that migrated north out of Africa across the Gibralter land bridge during the last ice age, and settled Spain and France. There are ancestors who were Norman Vikings, and Spaniards and Kings of England. There were more than a few knocked up peasant wenches in there, too, no doubt.
These are also white genes. Whatever the fuck that term means any more.
It's totally and completely absurd to obsess about melanin content like it means something.
And as for Obama, the man has a white mother and a black father, but you go back far enough, we all come from the same place.
The thing I got from reading his first book was this, though: whatever his parents were, his gift to us is that he has accepted all parts of his heritage, has loved both parts and is capable of modeling how we finally, at last, get past this awful insanity of thinking about race so much that it has driven us all insane.
Enough is enough. He is what he is. We are all what we are, and it's not as different as the wackos would like us to believe.
Barack Obama is biracial. I don't give a hog's crap about one drop rules. I am so tired of this antiquated thinking. Just because people may say he's black because that's how he will perceived to be by people, doesn't make that nonsense so. A person with a white mother and black father or vice versa, etc..is BIRACIAL!
Damn, you just ignored Ta-Nehisi's advice hardcore and indeed, you now sound like an idiot. What, you want to replace a one-drop rule with a 51% rule? If you have ever lived biraciality, you would know that race is not a jealous thing. It morphs and changes and shares space with other categories depending on the time, place, present company, and topic of discussion. For instance, if I am in a room full of white republicans from Montana, I am asian first and foremost. If I set foot in Taiwan, I am a white westerner on first glance, then an ABC the next. If I am in a bar on the lower east side, I am mixed race when I order a drink from the mixed-race bartender, another race when I talk to the white girl sipping her drink, and another race when my motley friends arrive for beers. When I go to work and see the same faces I see every weekday, race might drop into the background. But when that same room full of white people starts talking about fair housing violations, I become a person of color.
If you don't understand this, it is a sign that you are unqualified to be pronouncing in absolute and unequivocal terms that Obama is not black.
I will contribute no more to this discussion other than to say that TNC, this thread, and everything else that's been done here under the Coates button on Atlantic is awesome.
But I digress, as a 100% (?) black man with a 50% (?) black son, My biggest hope is that by the time he gets to be my age (33), dialogues like these will be nonexistent.
If that's not "black enough" for ya, click on my name after this comment. It's the first thing I think of when I see conversations like this pop up every now and then.
Obama 08! - Apparently, I must be voting for him just because we're both (mostly) black.
One of the interesting things about Obama is that he has an ethnic as well as a racial identity.
It's worth noting particular appeal to two groups: biracial youth, and 'American-Africans' -- recent immigrants from Africa and the diaspora.
Otherwise, I've spoken with a wide range of immigrants -- from all over the globe -- who have been inspired by his trajectory. They, particularly, hear echoes of his father's optimism in coming to the United States.
And, finally, his decision to stake his campaign on the Iowa and Midwestern caucuses says something about his audacity. It also says something about his patience with the foibles of parochial midwesterners.
Mr. Coates –
For my part, I was NOT the one who brought up the issue of Sen. Obama’s “blackness” or lack there of. I think “laborlibert” did but I can not be sure.
I did bring up the “one-drop rule”. You know that race relations in America is a subject that must be discussed very carefully. Now I don’t know if your scorn was direct towards anyone in particular. But blanket characterizations of the opinions stated in the relevant thread are, in my opinion, not quite appropriate. I understand your anger over every educated black man having to deal with the “is he black enough” crap. But the thread had more to it than that.
Once again, for my part, I was not trying to define who I think is “white” and who is “black”. Frankly, anyone can call themselves whatever the hell they want. Shaq and Jermaine O’Neal can call themselves Irish for all I care. They have my blessing to march in the parade.
My only point was that mainstream America, in other words white America, considers Sen. Obama to be black. The same goes for Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, Mariah Carey and any most any other bi-racial person you can think of. The “one drop rule” is still in effect, as it has been for years. I was not trying to make a philosophical point; I was only trying to point out a historical fact. You want to lament that fact, I do too.
As I said earlier, I’m half-Portuguese, Madeiran Portuguese to be exact. Madeira is a Portuguese-held African island. So my own bloodline could be….. Who knows? Who cares?
TNC, I'm going to drop this nugget here, for lack of a better place, and see if you have any comment on it. It's from your accidental colleague R. Gregory Douthat:
"In reality, when it comes to African-American "fecundity," pro-lifers are more likely to talk about abortion's disproportionately negative impact on the black birth rate than they are to fret about the rise of the colored empires. Yes, I'm sure you can find the odd racist crank who fits Wieseltier's stereotype, but for the most part isn't the fecundity that worries social conservatives; it's the fatherlessness. Which is why our side, to Jacob Weisberg's dismay, doesn't usually talk about reducing the birth rate when the subject turns to teen and out-of-wedlock births; that's Planned Parenthood's bailiwick, and always has been. We talk about maintaining (or increasing!) the fecundity, and raising the marriage rate to keep up with it. "
Since R. Gregory links to and slinks with white supremacist Steve Sailer, isn't he swimming in denial here?
Obama is obviously of African decent so the "black enough" question must relate to culture. Is there a checklist to determine one's cultural "blackness" (or "whiteness" or "brownness")? If so, who determined the items to be included on the list? Does this checklist apply worldwide or only to American "blackness" / "whiteness" / "brownness"? Can I choose my "ness" by by adopting the cultural choices that pertain to a particular list? Does everyone have their own list?
(Sigh. I HATE this.)
Is bi-racial just a polite way of saying "half-breed"?
Obama self-IDs as black , so that should end the discussion. Given the one drop rule in the USA , that's really the only way he can identify. If he was in Latin America, he would be classified as a mulatto- the term for someone of mixed African and European ancestry. In Nigeria, the term for that is "oyimbo"- and its not a complimentary term, either.
In any case, the science is in. All of us in the human species are descended from people who evolved into modern Homo Sapiens on the African continent by 70,000 years ago. Some of them left Africa and gradually replaced all the other hominids living on Earth at the time, and evolved into the local varieties we call " races"- varieties which are different by appearance, but which are otherwise virtually indistinguishable genetically. That's the science. Everything else is culture, bigotry, and guesswork.
Race is a social construct not biological classification of people. Meaning people made it up like all other stereotypes cultures, mores and beliefs. There is only one human race. We are 99% the same. What we can acknowledge is culture and differences in a environment that shapes societies.
This kind of thinking is so antiquated. Stop getting hung up on race. As long as both sides keep up nothing gets done. Generations in the future will look back at us and see our thoughts as archaic. Let Obama be Obama and you being you. Thank god for science.
Btw, T.C. you are right on…
Btw, T.C. you are right on…
It will not be possible to reach any modicum of fairness until we are all locked in pods with access to nothing but a wi-fi device that only allows us to communicate through blogs and SMS. We will all then be equal. And at least somewhat literate. Until that day the terrorists win. But don't they always win unless we place our noses in the Bush/Cheney/McCain orifice of political shit?
Moe, that's f---ing idiotic. In case you didn't notice, Ross Gregory is condemning abortion for _lowering_ the African American birth rate. Guess what, I agree with him. Abortion has disproportionately killed African-American unborn children, and the population of African Americans today is quite a bit smaller than it would have been without the absurd farce that is Roe v. Wade. Abortion has been effectively a weapon leveled against the African American community, and Mr. Coates ought to be ashamed of himself for endorsing a cruel practice that has destroyed so many members of his ethnicity. It is a strange day indeed when African American intellectuals like Mr. Coates cheer for White doctors telling Black women to destroy their own children, but that is the strange world we live in.
I posted this at Too Sense months back, but it fits in with the conversation here:
http://halfricanrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/obama-and-authenticity-paradox.html
"Obama and the "Authenticity" Paradox
Not once during the entire 2008 election cycle has any writer or commentator asked whether John Edwards is "white enough." Mike Huckabee has not been placed under the "authenticity" microscope to see if he is "really" white, or...something else. And Mitt Romney? Well, as noted below, he is possibly the Whitest Man Alive. No questions as to his identity.
Barack Obama gets an entirely different treatment. For him, in the eyes of the press and the punditocracy, his skin tone is not enough to prove his identity. He...looks black...but is he black enough? Is he really black?
According to Salon's Debra Dickerson, "'Black,' in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves." Well, yes. Frequently that's true. But not always. There are black people who descend not from slaves but from free persons of color. There are even black people whose ancestors owned slaves. It's not as simple as Dickerson, and others, want to put it.
Slavery has had and continues to have a greater impact on the black community than any other single historical fact. The assumptions that people make about black folks, and their attitudes towards black folks, are inevitably affected by the legacy of slavery. But those assumptions are often applied to, and those attitudes expressed towards, people who are visually taken for "black" whether or not they descend from slaves. Sad to say, appearance still matters in this country. To look black is to be black, at least in the eyes of the white community (and many non-white communities). As Obama himself has said, he's plenty black enough for a New York cabbie to refuse to pick him up.
What exactly are the people who doubt Obama's authenticity asking of him? Is there some requirement that he have suffered directly from the oppressive racism that many black people have experienced? If that's the case, there are a fair few middle-class and upper-middle-class black people (particularly those in their 20s and 30s) who fail the test. For the generation born and raised after the end of legal segregation, first-hand experience with racism is not a foregone conclusion. Does Obama need to have grown up impoverished in an urban ghetto in order to "really" be black? Again, if that's true all of the black folks who grew up in suburbia had better start looking for a new racial identity. Surely Obama is not being asked to talk "black", is he? If speaking urban slang is a litmus test now, Kobe Bryant has some explaining to do.
All of the differences between Obama and the "average" black person don't mean that Obama isn't black. What Obama proves is that the definition of "blackness" is necessarily a fluid thing. There is too much diversity of experience, and too much diversity of heritage, to assume that "blackness" means one thing and one thing only. "
Halle-effin-lujah to this post.
I am biracial, calling myself blasian. I DARE someone to challenge me on that.
All throughout high school I was called "whiteboy" by the black people, and "the whitest black boy" by my own white friends. I'm not mixed with white! Ugh, it's that level of ignorance that plagues people of the world today! Things are NOT just black and white. Just because I know proper etiquette, and have somewhat an understanding of how the English language works, I shouldn't be called "white".
Furthermore, and this relates more to the post, I can't stand it when ANYONE talks about things that they don't know about, period. People, it is NOT OKAY to sit up and talk about how someone needs to live their life, and you haven't the slightest idea of what that person has been through or how that person was raised. I'm just going to STOP NOW because I could go on for days.
As a multi-cultural person I must say: The one drop rule is a relic of Jim Crow and not founded in science. Secondly, Obama only looks black to Americans (if he went elsewhere he would not be seen as African). Thirdly, mixed people are not "either/or", black or white; we are BOTH or ALL of the the above. For blacks and whites who seek to define us...you have no place to do so. Our genes define us.