January20
Today Barack Obama is being inaugurated into his new job as President of the United States of America. Ever since he announced that he was running, America was all abuzz with talk about the possibility of a black president. And after learning about Barack’s family history (I saw an awesome biography on his life on a Jetblue flight…) I got to thinking…Why is everyone calling him “black”? His mom is white and his dad is black, so since he’s half white, half black, why is he automatically “black”. Is it because he identifies himself as a black man (which he probably learned through being identified by others as being black), or is there some sort of rule that as soon as white genes are “tainted” with any black genes, you are automatically “black”? My cousin Chelsea’s mom is white and her dad is black, but I don’t identify her as “my black cousin”. If people ask about her ethnicity, I just tell them that her mom is white and her dad is black. I thought that was called mulato (which is someone of mixed race), but apparently that is not politically correct anymore? With the USA being so overly politically correct, I have to wonder why there hasn’t been some sort of genetic standard set up to positively identify races, so as to avoid any confusion…haha.
I guess I just think it’s stupid that any black genes and you are automatically black. If Barack Obama identified himself as a white man, people would scoff and say that he is not a white man, even though he is just as white as he is black. All because he is slightly tanner then the average white person?
For something that the government is so anxious to categorize everyone with (race), it seems stupid that you can make up your own ethnicity. Both my parents are white, but I can mark “black” as my ethnicity on my job applications/college apps/etc, if I “identify” with that race. Does that seem stupid to you? I think it’s the governments way of getting around being racist. Why do any of these institutions need to know what race you are anyways? Besides the fact that they need to enroll/hire a certain amount of each race to prove that they are not racist…
Color doesn’t mean anything. If you are black, white, blue, green, or the color of a shit I had this morning, it doesn’t matter. We are all exactly the same on the inside.
Yeah, well that’s sort of part of my point.
I agree. What about the fact that he was born and raised most of his life in Hawaii, wouldn’t that make him Hawaiian instead of black? Or what about the years he spent living with his Mom and his Indonesian Step father in Indonesia, wouldn’t that make him a bit Indonesian? The media is hyping the darker color of his skin in relationship to the Emancipation of Proclamation so much that many Americans forgot to notice that only lineage of slave blood running through his veins would come from his mothers half Irish Heritage, not his fathers African heritage. A dark part of our history we all want to forget. The media is also helping every one forget what Dr. Martin Luther King JR said in his famous speech, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the COLOR of their skin but by the CONTENT of their character.”
Shouldn’t we be saying that a Special Man, or some might say a Great Man became President today. Or how about, “Another Great American Became President today. Someone who is of the people, from the people, for the people, not another sheltered aristocrat.”
How about instead of all that white/black/mulato/half-caste terminology we name people after coffee?
Flat white
Americano
Latte
Frappuccino
Greek frappé coffee
Liqueur coffee (Irish?)
Indian filter coffee
Yuanyang
Iced coffee
Which coffee are you?
ooh, ooh:
Hi, my name is Stefan and I come from the Double Low Fat Soy Latte tribe.
Summer,
I love the layout of this new site! It’s awesome!
Anyway, as far as whether Obama is “black” or not, I think the currently PC term is bi-racial. Throughout American (and world) history, they used to have a “test” that said if you had even one drop of blood other than white, that you were black (or at least not white), and they used this to discriminate in a variety of things. In fact, interracial marriage with that definition was illegal until 1967 (somewhat similar to the gay marriage and gay rights of today). That movie (and book) “Human Stain” with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman gets into the benefits of being white (and hiding your true race identity) in those days.
So, it is probably a little bit of everything, that people automatically think he’s black, and that he identifies with the black culture and struggles. It’s a fine line to say everyone is the same because we want to celebrate our differences and diversity while striving for equality.
And bulbboy, an interesting little tidbit- in a lot of cultures, the color of coffee is a way to describe variations in skin tone. In Spanish they often say “color café” to describe brown or “café con leche” when the skin tone is a little lighter.
Also, for the bikini post, the bikini designer probably got way more press out of it than ever thought!-They say even bad press is good press.
Sorry for such a long comment, you have interesting topics. Congrats on the baby.
-Cassie
I heard a story in my sociology class today about a woman who was put on a no-fly list because she “lied” about her race. Her birth certificate marked her as African American because she had “some” African American lineage. She took the matter to court, and the court sided against her, saying that even some black blood makes you black.