Barack Obama keeps referring to himself as a black man. Indeed he goes out of his way to stress that he is "African American." His parents as well as his friends all called him "Barry" when he was growing up, but Obama insisted on being called by his African given name: Barack. For two decades now he has attended a church which describes itself as authentically"black" and unashamedly "African." If this seems strange when you consider the fact that Obama has one black parent and one white parent, it is.
Obama's racial self-definition is derived from the famous, or infamous, one-drop rule which continues to hold sway in America but nowhere else. In other countries, say the nations of South America or Africa, if you have mixed blood you are considered mixed-race. It would be absurd to call a person who is 50 or even 70 percent white a "black" person. Why then does the United States use this weird rule according to which a single drop (or any visible presence) of blackness makes you automatically "black" and "African American"?
Many people think that the one-drop rule is a product of slavery. Not true. During slavery, the general rule was that slave status passed through the mother. In other words, if a white slave master had sexual relations with a female black slave, the offspring would automatically be considered a slave. By contrast, in the relatively rare case that a black slave produced a child with a free white woman, the offspring would be legally counted as white and therefore free. Obama has a white mother and a black father: in the antebellum South his racial status would pass through his mother.
The one-drop rule was a product of segregation and Jim Crow, not slavery. It developed in the postbellum South as a way to enforce a strict line of demarcation between black and white. Without such a rule an intermediate class of mixed-race mulattoes would make segregation increasingly difficult to enforce. Consequently the Southern ruling class mandated that even a modest trace of African heritage was sufficient to count as "black."
Strangely the one-drop rule has outlived segregation and is today embraced by the very groups the rule was designed to subjugate. Today the NAACP and the Black Caucus live by the one-drop rule, defining as "black" and "African American" anyone who has any discernible evidence of black ancestry. Reading Obama's The Audacity of Hope and his recent speech on race, I see no awareness of these ironies and no attempt to intelligently grapple with them. He is content to maunder about "complexity" and the need to "come together" despite our differences.
The deep question for Obama is not merely "how can America transcend race while continuing to have race-conscious policies?" but also "how can America transcend race as long as the one-drop rule remains intact?" Far from producing answers, Obama shows no recognition that these are even questions that need to be addressed. Meanwhile, Garry Wills in the current New York Review compares Obama's race speech to one of the great speeches of Abraham Lincoln. When I read this on the plane I almost lost my peanuts!
How embarrassing it is to see intellectuals like Wills and sophisticated magazines like the New York Review of Books and the New Republic fawn and grovel over Obama! You can be sure that if a white political candidate mouthed Obama's vague and vacuous nostrums, these liberals would not be issuing such hosannas. In this sense Geraldine Ferraro was right, not so much about Obama as about his white "amen corner." They are giving Obama something he has never asked for as a presidential candidate: intellectual affirmative action.
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 37)
16. HOW ABOUT THE "ONE-DROP MUSLIM RULE?"
SINCE HIS FATHER WAS BLACK, THE ONE DROP BLACK RULE APPLIES.
BUT HIS FATHER WAS ALSO A MUSLIM. PPLYING THE "ONE DROP" PHILOSOPHY, BARACK IS A "MUSLIM".
gonefishin at 4:42AM on Apr 14th 2008
17. "...In other countries, say the nations of South America or Africa, if you have mixed blood you are considered mixed-race. It would be absurd to call a person who is 50 or even 70 percent white a "black" person..."
What? Where in South America or Africa? Other countries, which ones? Well, your approach of this matter is so limited, so petty, so full of empirism that it doesn't loose its dear peanuts but, yes, its sub-stance!
At times, I believe, it's better/wiser not to write anything at all; to speak silence, instead of inadequately displaying the clumsyness of our disrupted thought! But, hey, I understand it, you could fool some people, here, based upon their comments but, the wisest, fortunately, you couldn't!
Lucky at 6:04AM on Apr 14th 2008
18. "BUT HIS FATHER WAS ALSO A MUSLIM. PPLYING THE "ONE DROP" PHILOSOPHY, BARACK IS A "MUSLIM".
gonefishin at 4:42AM"
He's not, but even if he was, so what?
brandon at 7:02AM on Apr 14th 2008
19. interesting that DD cannot have his view without being chided by the liberal thought police. your so quick to want to label DD that you jump at anything,it would not matter what he said.
why are you liberals have so much burning angst in your hearts? obama is just using his blackness and the general tenor of the day to his advantage. he is the one that i think is angry and racist. using his color to his advantage. and god forbid you mention color,except for him, or your branded by the liberal thought police. indeed its scary to think we could have aliberal president like obama and his liberal minions, truly scary
brian at 7:14AM on Apr 14th 2008
20. Having listened to the entire boring 37 minutes and 39 seconds of Obama's speech, I too am amazed and amused by the encomiums bestowed upon it by the MSM and others, but I guess that is to be expected in an essentially non-reading and non-thinking nation.
However, the speech was a masterpiece of obfuscation and misdirection. In it, Obama managed to point the finger everywhere but at himself. The key question isn't what Jeremiah Wright said, or why he said it (after all, Jeremiah Wright isn't running for President) nor what Obama's Granny says or thinks. The key question is: what was it about Wright's rhetoric that so attracted Obama that he joined Wright's church, sat in the pews listening to him for twenty years, took his children to listen, donated tens of thousands of dollars, and didn't raise a peep for all those years until Rev. Wright was busted, so to speak. This is the question that Obama masterfully avoided, and the MSM seems not to have noticed. But just let Bill Clinton say something truthful such as "Jesse Jackson also won in South Carolina",and the knives come out!
emelpe at 7:41AM on Apr 14th 2008
21. Holy crap, Dinesh, you already posted about this one, too. I could come up with more original stories and blog about them, in one day, than you could in a month.
So what if he is interested in his heritage? I'm a euro-mutt and I'd LOVE to identify with ALL of my ancestors. German, Irish, Hungarian, Polish, French, English. I'm only a small percentage of some but that doesn't make me feel less connected. At one time an entire family lived there and their children went forth into the world.
Why are you trying to stir up racial tension? Oh yeah, now I remember, you don't have anything else to use.
Strados at 7:46AM on Apr 14th 2008
22. So Dinesh, using the one drop rule we know you are responsible for our job losses to India and an elitist shill for the republicans, who will toss you aside when they're done with you.
Dennis at 7:48AM on Apr 14th 2008
23. emelpe...the whole Wright thing is old. Move on. Just like the taxes issue with Hillary was dropped when she FINALLY made them available...so should this. Take from it what you want, but please stop painting the picture that Wright preached blind racial hatred for 20 years and Obama was sitting in the front row every Sunday with his kids eating popcorn and shouting "AMEN!" Give it a rest, focus on REAL ISSUES. There are plenty to choose from for all candidates involved.
Strados at 7:50AM on Apr 14th 2008
24. I have found mixed race people in England call themselves black as well...
kumar at 8:00AM on Apr 14th 2008
25. yes,
DD post and now he is accused of stirring up racial tensions? amusing,were it not pathetic. it seems to me that obama hussien is working his blackness to his benefit many times over. obama is a racist or he would not have sat under a minister who spouted such vile things. let a white preacher do that and he would be lynched by the liberal minions, the thought police would be there and all the liberal media to boot. its getting a little concerning to admit your conservative in this day. the liberal minions seem to be on a witch hunt
brian at 8:04AM on Apr 14th 2008
26. What Dinesh doesn't go on to say is that we as Americans have been treating people of mixed race poorly forever. Usually in fact, mixed people cannot find wide-range acceptance anywhere, because there are racists on both sides who shun them. It's a truth that people who do not look white are treated as not-white. It doesn't matter if they're half, mostly, partially. If their skin or features are different, they are bound to be discriminated against, slandered, made fun of, looked at crosseyed, etc. So it only makes sense for them to save the trouble and just say they're an ethnic minority, instead of trying to attach an elaborate description of percentages every time they're asked. Come on, they have to fill in the OTHER box for ethnicity on most government/employment/insurance/etc. forms. How demeaning is that? Of course I'd choose something other than OTHER. How would that make YOU feel?
Strados at 8:06AM on Apr 14th 2008
27. brian, by all means, show evidence that Obama has used his blackness to his benefit. Sourced, please.
Strados at 8:08AM on Apr 14th 2008
28. Dinesh,
A couple things.
He is African American in every sense of that word. His mother was American and father African. Using it in a cultural sense, that's what he is.
If he was White, I can assure, that Hillary would have dropped out a long time ago. His brilliance is unquestioned and ability to lead is there.
Now thinking of it, maybe he should have called himself White. But then again, if he had done so, you would have written a blog writing how he is Black according to the "One Drop Rule", and he is not being true to himself.
Either way you spin it, you, politicians like you, and voters like you can't handle that he is Black in any way.
I can't wait for when he wins the Presidency.
McCain stands no shot in beating him. He wouldn't last 5 minutes in a debate with Obama.
But keep up your propaganda, it still won't work.
See you later.....Wolf
Botts at 8:14AM on Apr 14th 2008
29. Obama is a Muslim. And is the reason liberals say he is not, because USA will never elect a Muslim to the White House.
So you will never hear even a hint from the liberals that Obama is a Muslim
robert okane at 8:45AM on Apr 14th 2008
30. How dare you criticize the man for claiming to be what he considers himself. Did he criticize you, dd, for calling yourself an intellectual, or a writer of non-fiction?
At least Obama is partly black.
America's Most Gangsta at 8:51AM on Apr 14th 2008