Seriously? Why is it that so many of you are going out of your way to try and prove that Barack Obama isn’t really black? What’s at stake for you here? I know. I know. We’re all post-racial and shit these days and it makes you feel all enlightened and shit to say bi-racial, but for reals; look at the man. He’s black.
Y’see, here’s the thing. If Obama had chosen a different path in life–say, he decided to be a stick-up man rather than a politician–no cop in the nation would ever put out an APB for a bi-racial man wearing a black t-shirt. Never. They’d be looking for a black man. Period. Yet for some reason, now that this man, who under just about any other circumstance would never have his blackness denied, is the President-Elect of the United States, all of these people want to jump up and scream, “b…b…but…he’s not really black! His moms is white. How racist of you to say he’s black. One drop rule! Post-racial! ZOMG! We just can’t have a black President! Black people stop being all proud and uppity and shit!”
It almost makes me laugh. I don’t recall seeing so many articles and blog comments desperately trying to assert that Bill Clinton really wasn’t the first black President, even though it’s quite obvious that he wasn’t. Had Hillary Clinton become the first woman President, would you be going out of your way to try and prove that she really wasn’t a woman? Is this how much maintaining the privileged position of white manhood means to you?
And yes, that really is what you’re doing here: trying to maintain the privileged position of white manhood. I hate to get all lit crit on ya, but it usually becomes clear what, exactly, you’re doing within the first few sentences of these pathetically stupid articles. To wit:
Title of article: “He’s Not Black”
First sentence of article: “He is also half white.”
Notice what’s going on there? Notice how the article, from the very beginning, asserts blackness in the negative and whiteness in the positive. He most certainly is not black, but let us not forget that he most certainly is half white. That’s what is important.
And come on! This is the United States. A good number of us black folks are bi-racial (due to, if nothing else, the large-scale rape of black women by white slave masters; but that’s the subject of another post). So really, cut the crap. You see my light-skinned ass walking down the street and you see a black man. You know it. You aren’t thinking, “well, he probably has some white in him somewhere down the line, so he must be ok.” You’re thinking, “black man.” Period. That you are so willing to jump through hoops to deny what is obviously painful for you to accept is really, really sad.
He’s black. He identifies as black. Get over it.
Best wishes,
Kevin
P.S. Yes, you will be receiving another letter from me the very moment that Barack Obama makes a mistake and you all of the sudden remember that he is black and want to blame his mistake on his blackness. Just so you know.
I dont know who these fools are but I have to say there are loads of Black people out there who would rather die “bi-racial (how i hate that description) than live Black and the media feeds on this crap. Colonialism fed on it, slavery fed on it and some Black people feed into it. Some people cannot stand or accept my calling myself Black – they want me to be bi-racial or mixed race or some other nonsense that suits them because it divides up Black people and they feel by elevating the BR and MR they can co-opt them into their white agenda which they do. The one thing that really grabbed me when I first went to the US was everyone identified as Black irrespective of their shade of Blackness, I thought this a beautiful thing, but now that is changing. It is becoming like Europe and Africa whereby everyone is divided into hierarchical colonies of colour – it sinks. Post racial stinks – there is no such thing at this moment in time. A Black man was elected president and there are a couple of other Black people in high profile jobs and positions but hardly representative of the percentage of Black people in the population.
sokari ´s last blog post..World Aids Day: Zimbabwe
I think the answer to this one, sadly, is simply “Yes.”
I think so, actually. There would have been a slew of articles based on pop-psych bullshit insisting that she “didn’t run as a woman” or that she had a more “masculine” style or some nonsense, in the service of denying that her victory heralded a major shift in gender relations in this country. (With Clinton, of course, they’d have gotten the nice little ancillary benefit of smearing her as “unwomanly” and insinuating that she’s a lesbian, etc., which the right-wing noise machine has been sorely missing being able to do the past eight years.)
smadin ´s last blog post..Grove Street Amber Ale III
You hit em hard, man. First, let me just say that it’s weird seeing an interracial banner on the side of your blog. Secondly, you’re totally on point. There is a part of him that fully acknowledges his white background and that family, much the way Halle Berry’s playing it. However, he fully embraces his blackness, and does his best to stay in the Black population’s eye, when other men may have left the community because they’re all of a sudden loved by white people.
I’m also hating how people don’t say he’s a Black man, but he’s biracial, as if biracial is its own race. To wit, he’s both. It’s his identity and people judging him for his choice in identity need to grow up. That goes for Tiger Woods haters, too.
Jose ´s last blog post..The World Is Not Enough (World AIDS Day 2008)
@smadin: Yeah, while I was writing that question about Clinton, I thought to myself, “yeah, they most certainly would” as well because, as you say, this really is how important maintaining the privilege of white manhood is to some people. It bogles my mind sometimes.
I think the key things are a) how he identifies himself, and b) how people would identify him if he was not famous. You hit the nail right on the head: Obama identifies himself as a black man with a biracial family heritage, and your point about the APB is well-taken.
That said, if people choose to identify themselves as biracial/multiracial/Afro-Asian-Latino-Caucasian/whatever, that’s their choice on a). b) may well be another matter entirely, though, and they ignore that at their peril.
I thought this was going to be about Anatole Broyard!
Honestly, his blackness doesn’t matter, and neither does his whiteness. It’s his 1/8 IRISHNESS that’s important!
O’Bama in 2012!
Kevin, I came here from Shakesville. I read Maria Arana’s WaPo article on sunday, and it did not at all strike me as trying to maintain the privileged position of white men. It still doesn’t. Arana argues for a post-racial label-free world because people like her don’t fit into a two-or-three-tone America. She’s just taking five minutes to proclaim Obama’s victory to be a victory for multiracial people and to be a proud and uppity mixed race person. Why begrudge her that?
@Siobhan the Not Very Evil: LOL! Too funny!
@Anne: Hi, Anne. Thanks for stopping by.
Ok, so here’s the thing for me. NO black people fit into a two- or three-tone United States. In fact, NO people period fit into those labels. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the blog Jack and Jill Politics, but it turns out there’s a similar post to mine there about the same article. Here’s a relevant quotation from the piece which I think adequately sums up why this post-racial nonsense irks so many of us PoC.
“When White folks claim bi-racial Pookey that just robbed the liquor store and shot 3 people, then I’ll know it’s not just about trying to divorce Obama from the Black community.”
The only thing I’d add is that when “post/multi-racial” people also start claiming “Pookey,” then I might start re-thinking my objections. But it doesn’t work that way. The only reason Obama gets to fit into the post-racial narrative is because he was victorious and we all know his background. Like I said, I’m lighter than or at least as light as Obama, and NO ONE is going around proclaiming me a testament to the post-racial world because I went to an Ivy League school. I’m black. To everyone I meet.
And Sokari is right: black folks are often guilty of that shit too.
We, quite simply, are not there yet.
After reading the post at J&J, I thought that maybe I got it wrong. It’s not so much about maintaining white privilege (male or otherwise; and yes, there are many people of color actively working to maintain white privilege), but about “divorcing” Obama from the black community, a community that he IDENTIFIES with, by the way. But really, that’s half-a-dozen of one or six of the other.
So no. I don’t buy any of this “post-racial” nonsense. It rings so false to the reality that I and the people I know live that I’m just not willing to do anything but call it the bullshit that it appear to be.
Thanks for writing that. It’s so obvious it must have been painful to write it, but someone has to be standing up for obvious truth in America!
As a multi-racial young adult, I thought it was pretty cool that here was someone else that didn’t fit in people’s little boxes. I like seeing him as biracial because it gives me hope that someday I’ll be able to share an identity with my grandfathers.
In demanding sole claim to him as an icon you are denying the connection that all the kids growing up a different color than their parents. Are there horrible, and seductive, racist messages in some of the statements you attribute to anyone who dares to call him “biracial”? Yes. But that doesn’t mean he’s not, and it doesn’t mean everyone who refers to him that way is thinking all those things.
I cannot get over it. Why are so many people ignorant to the fact that the vast majority of “blacks” in the Western hemisphere are of mixed race. In a post racial society, being African American or Afro-Caribbean will no longer be seen as monlithic or negative.
I from the Caribbean, if I used Maria Arana’s logic as to what is and is not black then I along with most of the “blacks” that I know are not black. However, we know better.
Kevin,
Thanks for the additional explanation. The bit about divorcing him from the black community makes a lot of sense.
Anne
And thank you, Anne, for not being a drive-by troll and for coming back to read my response to your concerns. Of course, knowing that you came from Shakesville should’ve clued me in to that. I’m too cynical at times; I admit it.
I do want to say, though, that I get where you’re coming from, even if I don’t think we’re there yet. So, I hope you come back and share more of your ideas. Contrary to what some of the drive-by trolls would have you believe, this is a space for discussion and learning. There’s a lot of learning to be done on this blog.