What The Fuck AM I?

A black guy (left) tolerating an almost black guy he may have nothing in common with

Hey, let's talk about Barack Obama.

No? You're super saturated with Obama-ness? No, its not that? You just didn't come here to think about the next president?
(sigh)
Well, I sort of have this thing I need to get off my chest and it SORT of has a lot do with Obama. It started when I talked to my father after the election. He is descended from untracable African blood, a little native american, and very little Irish. I asked how he felt about there being a Black guy in the white house. Here were his thoughts:

"He's not black. He's Bi-racial."

Pssht, whatever Dad. So the President-Elect isn't a black guy? He's got a real dangerous tan then. He's GOT to be black, these white people are all bent out of shape about it! (well, and other stuff also...)

People thinking once you're President "...the blacks will take over" doesn't make you black, true (although a white man calling you a "Nigra" should...), but what about all these newspaper headlines talking about a historic vote? I was under the impression that we elected not just ANY Black President, nay, THE FIRST. I was interested and annoyed my father didn't think him black. It made me feel like he didn't consider ME black (My mother is a pale 2nd generation Dutch plus other European ethnicities) or himself, and that is bothersome.

I had to tell someone my age so we could laugh at the old coot. Someone Black though, because a white person wouldn't understand (prejudiced) uh, I mean would understand differently. And also so they could reaffirm that I am indeed Black. Whatever. My roommate, an authentic phenotype of an African male and only 4 months older than me seemed the perfect person. He'll have a different perspective that is compatible with mine, right?

"He's not black. He's Bi-racial."

Okay, here is this weird idea again that somehow someone can be both things and neither at the same time. And not just can't be SOMETHING, but BLACK! From two different black people!

I want to explore this idea real quick so let's explore and test this assertion right now with some simple logic. Actually first, definitions:

bi·ra·cial

(b-rshl)

adj.

1. Of, for, or consisting of members of two races.

2. Having parents of two different races.

race

(rs)
n.

1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.

2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution

bi- ¹ or bin-pref

1a. Two: biform.

1b. Both: binaural.

1c. Both sides, parts, or directions: biconcave.

per·son

(pûrsn)n

The composite of characteristics that make up an individual personality; the self.

A good definition for bi-racial person might also might be a combination of all three definitions, perhaps the definition of the physical perception we agree to be bi-racial:

A composite of characteristics from two geographic or global human populations distinguished as a more or less distinct groups by genetically transmitted physical characteristics that make up an individual

In none of these definitions have I seen the idea that from the combination of two races, one or both are canceled or made null. Okay so, now, consider The Three Laws of Aristotelian Thought, that if something is A:

A is A (Identity)

Nothing is both A and Non-A (Non-Contradiction)

Nothing is Neither A or Non - A (Exclusion Of The Middle)

Let's apply it. If something is Both Races (black/white):

Both Races(black/white) is Both Races(black/white)
Nothing is both both races(black/white) and Non-Both Races(black/white)
Nothing is Neither Both Races(black/white) or Non - Both Races(black/white)

So the second law invalidates any argument that someone who is biracial is not black, unless one of their two races was not black. He isn't JUST black, I know. He is BOTH white and black. Different from someone who is just black? Well, of course. But different in what way? In the way that a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square? The idea used by roommate to distinguish a difference was:

"You can't tell me that having a white mother he hasn't enjoyed an amount of white privilege that isn't afforded to black people."

So we're REALLY talking about race-based privilege. Why didn't you SAY so? Now I feel embarrassed that I went to all that trouble to prove that he is black. Our conversation didn't develop much further than that, really just arguing gray areas of privilege and acceptance (if you're 33% Irish and 66% Scottish, do you get to say you're Irish? Will Irish people accept you as Irish?) but I was left feeling like I needed to know more about the current discourse on how Black people view Obama's race. After sleeping on it, I decided to ask TIME magazine, specifically an op-ed column published February 01, 2007 titled Is Obama Black Enough? In it Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates writes:

Ever since Barack Obama first ascended the national stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, pundits have been tripping over themselves to point out the difference between him and the average Joe from the South Side. Obama is biracial, and has a direct connection with Africa. He is articulate, young and handsome. He does not feel the need to yell "Reparations now!" into any available microphone.

So, is that a problem?

...this is a double-edged sword. As much as his biracial identity has helped Obama build a sizable following in middle America, it's also opened a gap for others to question his authenticity as a black man. [Joe Biden] calling Obama the "first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," the implication was that the black people who are regularly seen by whites — or at least those who aspire to the highest office in the land — are none of these things.

Yeah but that's just a gaffe from Joe Biden and the guy is a gaffe factory. Plus he is white, so that doesn't mean anything. Obama isn't himself trying to separate from blacks. Mr. Coates goes on to quote black journalist Stanely Crouch from his November 2006 column in the New York Daily News entitled What Obama Isn't: Black Like Me And what is Mr. Crouch's sentiment?(like it's not obvious)

After all, Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan. Other than color, Obama did not - does not - share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves. Of course, the idea that one would be a better or a worse representative of black Americans depending upon his or her culture or ethnic group is clearly absurd.

...when black Americans refer to Obama as "one of us," I do not know what they are talking about. In his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own - nor has he lived the life of a black American.

That means that if you have not lived inside of America your whole life and in the center of a Socio-Geographically black area witnessing abuse first hand or being abused you cannot claim being black and no black community could claim you to be either. Also to be black you have to have all the problems of other black people. Would you agree Debra Dickerson from a Salon.com op-ed titled Colorblind?

"Black," in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can't be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won't bother to make the distinction. They're both "black" as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally black, as we use the term.

Apparently, black people do not exist outside of America(sorry Africa). I'm pretty sure also that no two people have the same outlooks on anything because of a plethora of hereditary and environmental variables.

If he were Ronald Washington from Detroit, even with the same résumé, he wouldn't be getting this kind of love. Washington would have to earn it, not just show promise of it, and even then whites would remain wary.

If he were Ronald Washington from Detroit he also would not be Barack Obama. I'm not understanding what this has to do with what the difference between Barack Obama and a person descended from West African Slaves and what THAT has to do with how I should interpret what an Obama presidency means in terms of socio-political race relations.

To say that Obama isn't black is merely to say that, by virtue of his white American mom and his Kenyan dad who abandoned both him and America, he is an American of African immigrant extraction. It is also to point out the continuing significance of the slave experience to the white American psyche; it's not we who can't get over it. It's you. Lumping us all together (which blacks also do from sloppiness and ignorance, and as a way to dominate the race issue and to force immigrants of African descent to subordinate their preferences to ours) erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress. Though actually, it is a kind of progress. And that's why I break my silence: Obama, with his non-black ass, is doing us all a favor.

So black people who accept black people who are not from America as black are ignorant, white people haven't gotten over guilt of slavery BECAUSE they're accepting dark skinned people from other countries as black without our permission, and it doesn't even matter because it's undeniable progress anyways. Thanks for nothing Deb.

Both Mr. Crouch and Ms. Dickerson are baby boomers. Here at Kafkaesque Means Nothing we like to consider generational attitudes and how they affect us and what we chose to support, believe, or attempt to achieve. Perhaps these are generational attitudes that are mired in outdated knee jerk reactions to race bias and loyalty. Does the attitudes of these two black boomers reflect the attitude of the majority of baby boomers at large? Washington Post?

If there is a cleavage in the generational landscape, the polls suggest, it is less between the youngest and the middle-aged than it is between over-65 voters and everybody else, and especially the now approaching retirement Baby Boomers.

Taking a look at the demographic breakdowns, this definitely was the case. Youth voters upheld Obama, while the +65 voters were for McCain. 95% of black voters supported Obama of any age. So the authentic blackness of Obama didn't stop black people from voting for him. (Even though black voters supported Hillary Clinton 3 to 1 in the primaries). Coates makes a good point about black voter support of Al Sharpton in the 2004 primaries:

[Al] Sharpton has an overstated following among black people. In 2004, when Sharpton ran for President, his traction among his alleged base was underwhelming. In South Carolina, where almost half of all registered Dems were black, both John Kerry and John Edwards received twice as many black votes as Sharpton. But this hasn't stopped media outlets from phoning Sharpton whenever something even remotely racial goes down. And it hasn't stopped writers from touting Sharpton's presumed popularity among black people, as opposed to "palatable" black people like Obama.

Unfortunately no amount of polling information is going to answer the tough and touchy question of how black Americans feel about the authenticity of Barack Obama's race. If Barack Obama isn't authentically black to blacks, and certainly not authentically white to whites, but we're still supporting him, what are we supporting? If he doesn't represent the idea that Black Americans have come to the point of being capable of anything white Americans are capable of, what DOES he represent? The idea that whites can support a non-white? Is this sentiment amongst some that he is black in a DIFFERENT way just some form of racial elitism meant to distinguish American born and bred blacks from blacks of the rest of the world, and if it were what does THAT say about the course the black culture has taken here in America when there are hundreds of thousands of AIDS ridden, malnourished, war torn, forcibly migrated black communities all over the world still suffering from institutionalized racism? Would that Nigerian Taxi Driver not have a beer with the 3rd generation Harlemite because their accents are different? Would they not agree on topics because they're from different places? Do we as black Americans believe a biracial president will work as hard as pure black president would for black people of America? Of the world? If the horrible atrocities of racism can't even bring black people together over whatever differences THEY have, how will the rest of the people of the world ever overcome it?