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.

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.

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.

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.

Honestly, his blackness doesn’t matter, and neither does his whiteness. It’s his 1/8 IRISHNESS that’s important!

O’Bama in 2012!